


Pidge the Problem-Solver

by elfenphoenix



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Aromantic Asexual Pidge | Katie Holt, Fluff, Multi, Please don't take this fic seriously, Post s4-ish, Romantic Comedy, but it's a total comedy, multi-ship, needed to perk myself up after that ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-16
Updated: 2018-02-11
Packaged: 2019-01-18 02:23:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 22,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12378903
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elfenphoenix/pseuds/elfenphoenix
Summary: You’d think that being the only Asexual person on a team would make Pidge obviously the LAST person to go to for romantic advice, but apparently the rest of Team Voltron doesn’t quite get it, because Pidge keeps getting stuck in the middle of everyone ELSE’S problems, and is getting a little bit tired of it. Maybe if she can get them all to just tell each other how they feel and get it over with, they’ll leave her alone…





	1. Prologue: Why ME?

**Author's Note:**

> I'm writing this as a personal whim because I'm traumatized by the end of Season 4, and am just kind of making up for it by making this fic SUPER weird and funny and fluffy. It's whimsical, really. Please don't take this too seriously. Although it is very fun to write.

Pidge figured that with the Voltron coalition being a thing now, plus their big almost-disaster on Naxzela, plus the whole crazy thing about their “discussion” with Lotor (but we are NOT going down that road), plus getting her brother back but now in space instead of on Earth, there was no such thing as “normal” anymore. Routine? Yeah, forget about that. Not happening. Like ever.

But she kind of hoped that there might be  _ some _ days, now that she wasn’t looking for Matt, when she could just take a break. Maybe she’d play video games with Lance for a while, then go tinker with some stuff downstairs, or study her Altean. Or teach Matt what she knows so far! Then maybe just kind of hang out with Hunk in the kitchen or something. “Help” him make supper. Which really meant “observe and occasionally hand him ingredients.”

And dammit, today was THE DAY. The day she could just relax for once. Even if she had to get there by force.

Which might be necessary, since ever since Lance found out that Keith almost sacrificed himself by plunging his ship into Haggar’s energy shield, the two of them had been arguing more fiercely than ever. It created a tension that settled over the whole Castle of Lions like fog, dropping all speech into a whisper. She knew that Shiro and Hunk were putting deliberate effort into keeping the two of them apart for a while, but honestly? Pidge was kind of partial to just letting them run into each other and fight. Or make out. Or both. Since everyone  _ knows _ it’s gonna happen eventually oh quiznak just get it over with. 

Personally, she was a little miffed at Keith, too, but she figured there was probably something she didn’t know, and she figured that he’d tell them when he was ready. If Lance wanted to get up in his face, then that was his problem.

Pidge kicked off her blanket and dug around her room for her clothes, getting dressed and then tucking her computer under her arm and readying herself for the new artificial day. She was feeling kind of sweaty, so maybe she’d start with a bath/shower. Whatever you called the decontamination on the Castle.

The halls were just as quiet as they’d been the past few days, despite the members of the Coalition drifting in and out as usual. But with Lance being moody, the whole place had lacked the kind of warm energy it usually did, so most guests didn’t stay too long.

Actually, now that she thought about it, the tension wasn’t  _ just _ coming from Keith and Lance. Hunk was getting quiet, too, like there was something he was really worried about, and Allura and Shiro weren’t really talking, either. And there was probably a bunch of other nonsense going on, too. She really, really hoped it wasn’t romance related, despite her hunches. Because if it was, she was going to have to step out. She didn’t know  _ anything _ about that subject. First of all, Pidge was fifteen. Second, she was literally not interested. At. All. 

She was just gonna go about her day, do her thing, and not get involved in anyone else’s problems. 

Yeah, right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I use “she/her/hers” pronouns for Pidge because that’s my personal headcannon. I base that on Pidge’s wording of “I’m a girl” in S1E5. To me that indicates how she identifies, despite her outward appearance, but it’s totally okay if people interpret that differently. But that is how I interpret her in this story, so I will use female pronouns. I hope you like the story!


	2. Klance Part 1

It began early on, when she was on the way to the shower, and encountered Keith already in his full Blade of Marmora outfit. Which, admittedly put a little stab of pain through her, but she didn’t say anything about it.

“Hey, Keith, whatchya doing here so early?” she asked as brightly as she could.

“Oh, hey Pidge. I didn’t think anyone besides Shiro and Allura were awake already.”

Pidge raised an eyebrow. “So you were gonna come when we were all asleep?”

Keith’s expression closed, and he straightened up and grumbled, “Well, since Lance clearly doesn’t want to see me, I figured it would be best if I was in and out before he woke up.”

Right. Pidge couldn’t say she was surprised. But she’d ignore that little bit of information for the time being. “So you came with Kolivan?”

“Yeah. We’re still checking whether what Lotor said is trustworthy. I don’t think so, but… we wanted to check up with everyone first.”

“You sure you’re doing okay?” she asked, genuinely concerned.

“Yeah. I’m fine.” He smiled, but it was obviously fake. Keith wasn’t as hard to read as he thought he was.

“Well, okay. But next time you come by, you should say hi to everyone. You’re still a part of the team, y’know? Hunk’s always ready for a hug if you ever want one. And Lance is always ready for an argument.”

Keith’s face twisted up, and he quickly turned around, facing away from her and pulling his hood back over his ears. “Yeah, I’m sure he is. Hey, when he wakes up, make sure you tell _him_ that if me being a member of the Blade of Marmora bothers him so much, he can form his own mysterious secret order, all by himself.”

Pidge grimaced and shook her head as he walked briskly away, already knowing that her day was not going to go as she hoped.

 

~~~

 

“Well you tell _him_ that he’s a crazy suicidal maniac that doesn’t feel human emotion!” Lance shouted immediately after Pidge transmitted Keith’s message.

They were sitting on the floor of Lance’s room, playing the game they had bought together on the space mall, since Hunk had built a complicated contraption so that they could actually hook it up to one of the castle’s holo-screens. She hadn’t been planning on actually saying what Keith had told her, but Lance’s weird, concentrated silence was so annoying that she’d just kind of blurted it out.

Mark the two of them down for hopeless. Pidge’s character died, so she dropped the controller and announced that she was going to go study her Altean. Mainly because she didn’t want to get Lance started on the subject of Keith.

Too late.

“Does he even care about how _we_ would feel if he just died? Does he ever think about that at all? I mean, I know the Marmora are all _knowledge or death_ and all,” he grumped, making his voice deep and serious at the Blades’ motto, “but what crazy person _actually_ throws their life away at any given opportunity?! And that jerk never even bothered trying to help me pilot Red! You’d think he’d at least try to give couple pointers, but no, he not only leaves me hanging out to dry, he ditches the entire team!”

Pidge was starting to get a headache. She quickly said so to Lance, excusing herself, deciding to go back to her room for a while and tinker with her trash voodoo-dolls of the two of them, so she could pretend that the real things weren’t driving her insane.

A couple hours later, the paladins were called to the bridge to meet up with the members of the Blade of Marmora, who had just returned from their reconnaissance mission, apparently having found both nothing and something. There was nothing actually there, just some asteroids, but there was a weird quintessence reading, and some Galra ships had recently gone through the area.

Meanwhile, as Pidge tried to focus on analyzing the data, Hunk was trying to keep Lance distracted from Keith.

It wasn’t working.

“If you just stepped back and looked at the bigger picture for a second, you’d know that Voltron is more important than _me_!” Keith was yelling, probably because Lance had mumbled his thoughts from earlier under his breath.

“Oh yeah, because I’m _Keith,_ I’m soooo cool, I can just ditch my team for a while and then not even say hello when I visit in the morning. Because who cares about Team Voltron, right?”

“Are you seriously mad about that?!”

“Guys, guys, seriously, can’t we just talk this out like friends?” Hunk attempted, slowly moving them toward the door, since the Olkari were starting to give them weird looks.

Keith huffed and headed through the door, his shoulders hunched. Pidge wished her analysis would take longer, but unfortunately she was done. She relayed her info to the crew, and reluctantly headed out of the bridge’s doors after Allura’s dismissal, unsurprised to now see Lance and Keith arguing in the hallway.

She tried to sneak by, but Lance was, unfortunately, pretty perceptive.

“Pidge! Is it or is it not a dick move to leave without giving me any pointers on the Red Lion? I need your input on this.”

 _Don’t do it don’t say anything,_ she encouraged herself, shrugging as she pushed forward. _If you stay around them, you’re just gonna snap._

“I had to learn it the hard way, too. _Twice_. Stop making this about yourself!” Keith yelled back.

 _Snap_.

“WOULD YOU TWO JUST STOP!”

Both Keith and Lance froze, looking in frightened awe down at Pidge. Part of her thought that maybe she should just stop right now. Quit. Try to continue not getting involved. But now she was running on adrenaline, so she couldn’t really stop the words from coming out.

“Can you guys stop arguing for TWO SECONDS?!” she shouted, suddenly feeling taller than she was, based on the way they were shrinking back from her. “You’re even worse now than you were when we first got roped into this whole space mess, and I thought you were actually getting along for a little while! You’re BOTH morons, and you’re BOTH making everything into a bigger deal than it needs to be, and you BOTH _obviously_ care about each other, so stop pretending you don’t and shut up and calm the hell down, okay!”

Her anger vented, she stomped away, back to her room.

~

She wasn’t super surprised at the knock on her door, but she’d at least calmed down a bit thanks to petting her pet blue fuzzball and tinkering with a toy Voltron so that it could do the splits.

“Hey, Pidge… it’s me, Lance.”

“Yeah, come in.”

The door slid open, and Lance immediately walked into the room and flopped himself down onto her bed, which he’d done so many times already that she didn’t really care anymore.

“I didn’t want Keith to go,” he admitted, his voice muffled by the way he buried his mouth into her pillow.

“None of us did,” she said as encouragingly as she could. It wasn’t as if she didn’t have feelings, after all.

“I just… it doesn’t feel right anymore. Without Keith. We came here as a team, you know? And I thought of him as a rival, and I never felt I could catch up to him. That jerk, he never even thought of me as his rival, did he?”

“I don’t know,” Pidge sighed, pretending to focus on something on her computer, which was actually just a glorified version of Pong.

“I just get so mad, every time I think about him driving into that energy shield. I hate that he thinks none of us care enough, that I wouldn’t be hurt if he died. I don’t hate him. I really… thought he could be the leader. I wanted him to be. And you know, I do my best, but I don’t really feel right in the Red Lion when it’s Shiro. I mean, when Shiro was the leader, I was a leg. He doesn’t count on me like he does Keith. Being in Voltron next to Keith… that feels natural to me. And I miss it. I miss him.”

 _And why are you telling_ me _this?_ Pidge thought. She had a pretty good idea where he was going. And don’t get her wrong: it was nice that Lance was confiding in her, but she just wasn’t really sure she was the right person for the job. After all, she had made it pretty clear that she had no experience in and was not interested in romance, and yet for some reason she was the one in the middle of this.

Lance rolled over on her bed, so he was looking over at her. “At first he was a rival, and then I guess we were friends. Well… we were working on it. He was kind of funny, because he just doesn’t _get_ so many super easy things. I kind of liked helping him out, you know? I liked Keith. Maybe… maybe I liked him a lot. I don’t know what I would have done if he actually _had_ sacrificed himself. It scares me to think about. That’s why I get so angry whenever I see him now, but I guess I’m just making him feel even less like he should come back. You’re smart, Pidge...what… what should I do?”

Pidge sighed again and looked up from her computer, setting it aside. She could try to avoid the subject, since she had no real advice, so honesty was really the only way to go. “okay, yeah, I have no idea what that feels like; sorry. But you should go talk to him YOURSELF. Because as someone who’s not a complete moron, that seems like a logical solution.”

Lance sat up, raising an eyebrow at her. “Seriously? You think Keith is actually going to just sit still and listen to touchy-feely stuff like that?”

Pidge shrugged. “I don’t _know_ , okay? But since yelling at each other isn’t working, maybe talking like normal, civilized people is a good next step. You both have feelings, things you need from each other. You’re probably not as different as you think you are. I mean, you both piloted the Red Lion, right? Maybe there’s something you have in common.” She wasn’t really sure what she was saying, but she hoped it was convincing.

Lance frowned, but finally got up off her bed and nodded, more as if he was agreeing to his own idea than one of hers. “Yeah… yeah, I guess I’ll give it a try. I’m gonna go visit Red for a while. See ya, Pidge!”

He started heading out the door, then paused, leaning back and whispering, “oh, but… don’t tell anyone about this, okay?”

Pidge waved, looking back at her computer screen sourly. “You have my solemn oath.”

“Great, thanks Pidge!”

Pidge shook her head, closing out of Pong.

_But seriously, why me?_

~~~

Matt was out on a meeting with the rebel fighters, so Pidge decided to go clear her head and try figuring out how the Olkari headgear worked. Whatever happened with Lance and Keith was none of her business, so long as they stopped arguing.

Actually, that wasn’t right. To be honest, she’d been pretty happy when Keith had been piloting the Black Lion and Lance hadn’t been a total jerk about it. She had, for just a second, thought that they were getting along, and it had been nice. She’d thought that maybe, even though she missed Shiro a lot and she wanted him back… something good had come out of his disappearance.

“Pidge! Pidge, wait up!”

Oh no, here it comes.

She spun around to look up at Keith, fixing her most tolerant smile on her face. _Please tell me he doesn’t want to talk about Lance… please tell me he doesn’t want to talk about Lance…_

“Um… it’s about Lance…”

“If you want me to deliver a message for him, you can forget about it,” she interrupted firmly.

He looked down at his feet, the tint in his cheeks looking kind of purplish under the blue Altean lights and the darkness of his Marmora uniform. “No, it’s not that. I’m sorry we got on your nerves. I just… wanted him to believe that he was a part of the team. More important than me! He just doesn’t _know_ , and I… um… what did you mean when you said that we… obviously… care about each other?”

Pidge rolled her eyes. “Here’s an idea: if you didn’t want to take his spot on the team, why didn’t you just _tell_ him that?! You know Lance is an idiot. You gotta say it or he’ll just think you’re challenging him to a fight. He was the first person to comment when you weren’t there, and he’s the one most annoyed that you almost killed yourself. It’s not like the rest of us like the idea, but I think you would have really hurt him. But what do I know? Maybe you should just ask Lance.”

“I can’t just come out and say that to him!”

“You’re right. You should probably start with, ‘Lance I’m in love with you please stop hating me’.”

“PIDGE!”

Keith was crimson by now, and Pidge couldn’t say she was surprised. “What, am I wrong?”

He glanced around, then grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her over to a corner. “Don’t just blurt that stuff out! Just because… even though…”

“It’s true?”

“You guys just figured out how to be Voltron again. I can’t mess that up.”

Pidge’s expression flattened. “We did weird shows for weeks under a crazy Coran and almost died when we fell into Haggar’s trap. We’re doing so great as a team. Seriously, go talk to Lance.”

“I… where is he?”

Pidge hid a grin and said, “I dunno. Guess you better go find him, huh?”

“Thanks, Pidge. That… helps. I’ll see you around, hopefully.”

“Yeah, go do your thing, Keith.” _I have no idea what I just said, but I’m just gonna hope everything works itself out._

He let go of her shoulders and hurried off down the halls, looking a bit wild with his determination, and Pidge breathed out a sigh of relief. Well, temporary relief. Her idea of “just talk to each other” could totally backfire and make everything worse, but hey, it’s not like she really _knew_ what they should do. It’s just that “communication is the key to a healthy relationship” was something she and her brother would always joke about when they were watching TV couples/friends/family members argue and/or fall apart. She’d never seen it work in practice, but, then again, she’d never seen it _not_ work, either.

Pidge wasn’t really fond of secrets, especially after she told everyone she was a girl. It had been hard to lie to everyone, and she’d felt a lot better after she’d let it all out, so she could be herself AND a full member of the team. She hoped maybe that worked for Lance and Keith, too.

She tucked her computer more tightly under her arm and exhaled a breath, figuring that maybe she’d go talk to Hunk, since he was easy to talk to about pretty much anything, and after that whole mess, it would be nice for a conversation to be easy.

As she passed by the castle’s foyer, she glanced down and saw Keith and Lance talking to each other in hushed tones, both looking surprised, worried, and happy all at once.

“Hey, why don’t we go on patrol?” Lance was suggesting, pointing out the door. “We can… make sure everyone is safe.”

“Yeah… sure. It might be nice to get outside.”

Pidge turned away, feeling like she was intruding on a private moment, barely catching with her final glance the moment when Lance reached behind himself and slipped his hand into Keith’s, pulling him forward out into the Olkarian sunlight.

But that was none of her business.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm planning a specific format for this story, where each pairing will have two chapters: one with the conflict, and the other with the resolution. But they won't be consecutive, so it'll be Hunay next!
> 
> Also, keep in mind that not all of the arguments that are happening are related to romance! Many of them (like Coran and Allura) are platonic. I hope you enjoy them!
> 
> Also, the line of "communication is the key to a healthy relationship" is a personal catchphrase of mine lol. Like Matt and Pidge do in this story, I say it all the time whenever there's conflict in a book, movie, tv show, etc. (including Voltron) because characters aren't talking to each other about the issue, and are thus misunderstanding each other. I actually kind of relate to Pidge in this story because of that line, hahaha. I'm not asexual, but I have been single all of my life, yet have the weird experience of people going to me for relationship advice and being like "how the hell am I supposed to know?!" but just telling them that they should talk to each other rather than trying to keep it to themselves, because that's what makes sense to me. But I usually still do have that reaction of "I hope my advice doesn't make anything go horribly wrong, because I have no idea what I'm talking about." I guess you could say that I think in terms of expertise: on anything academic, you go to someone with experience in the field, because they're the most credible. Why wouldn't it be the same thing with romance? And yet we still look for advice from those who have none. It's an interesting paradox. But also a funny one XD


	3. Hunay Part 1

Pidge found herself in the Yellow Lion’s chamber, her computer on her lap while Hunk muttered through possible improvements.

“Hey, d’you think there’s a way to extend Yellow’s armor?” he asked, glancing at the Lion, then back down at Pidge.

She shrugged. “You mean further than what you can do right now?”

“I mean like… as a part of Voltron. So far as I know, Yellow’s the only one that can get extra armor, which means if we get attacked from behind, or from so many directions that you can’t cover us with the Green Lion’s shield, everyone else is kind of vulnerable, aren’t they?”

Pidge leaned back on her hands, considering this. “Yeah, I guess so. I dunno if there’s a way to extend one Lion’s powers onto the others, though. It seems like we can’t really do our special attacks while a part of Voltron-- only when separate.”

“Right, but you added the Green Lion’s cloak to Voltron-- why not do that with the armor? There’s gotta be a way, right?”

Pidge grinned, scenarios and equations running through her head rapidfire. She felt pretty relieved, talking science with Hunk. It was  _ way _ easier than giving Keith and Lance relationship advice, and made a lot more sense for her.

“Maybe, but it would be temporary… and since we don’t fully understand how quintessence works, we might need…”

“An external power source!” they both shouted at once, then laughed, Hunk dropping down onto the ground next to her.

“Do you think we could get a crystal from the Balmera?” he suggested, while Pidge was quickly working on the schematics of the design. “Just a small one, not like the castle’s.”

Pidge frowned. “That might work, but ideally it would make more sense to use a piece of the comet that Voltron was made out of, or maybe the one Lotor got ahold of.”

“Right, right, right, but since we  _ obviously _ can’t really use that, wouldn’t it be easier to just go the Balmera?”

Pidge narrowed her eyes, peering at Hunk through the glasses she didn’t need to wear. “You just want to see Shay, don’t you?”

“NO!”

She raised an eyebrow, unconvinced.

“Okay yeah, maybe a little. But I still think that extending the armor is a good idea! Actually your brother suggested it, maybe basing it on the design of the rebel fighters’ ships.”

“Oh, really? I guess maybe…” she shook her head, massaging her forehead. “Sorry, Hunk. I didn’t mean to be nosy. It’s just that everyone’s been so  _ tense _ ever since Shiro disappeared, and it only got worse after Naxzela. I just feel like everyone’s bothered by something different, but no one’s saying anything about it.”

“Oh you’re telling me! I heard Lance talking in his sleep about Keith, but that’s a whole other road to go down…”

Pidge leaned back, looking at him oddly. “What?! When did you overhear  _ that _ ?”

“Huh? Oh yeah, he came into my room to talk about his family, and then he fell asleep on my floor. He got really mad when he woke up because he didn’t do his skincare routine, but I thought he needed the sleep. Anyway, yeah, you would not  _ believe _ the stuff he’s said in his sleep…”

Pidge shook her head, waving at him to stop talking. “Okay yeah, I don’t need to know. Forget I brought it up.”

“Oh yeah, there’s other stuff, too,” he laughed, patting Yellow’s claw. “The mice stole something from Coran’s room as a prank and Allura knows about it but doesn’t want to tell him. And Shiro and Allura are  _ super _ awkward right now. I don’t think they’ve spent any time alone together since we got Shiro back, now that I think about it…”

Pidge waved her hands again, a bit wilder this time. “Woah, woah, woah, stop!  _ How _ do you know all of this stuff?!” She reconsidered this, going back to her computer. “You know what? I don’t want to know. It better not be something like reading my diary, though.”

Hunk avoided her gaze.

“Hunk?”

“Uh, what? So about that energy source…?”

Pidge groaned. “Why don’t you just  _ go _ , Hunk?”

“What?!” his face reddened, and he began playing with his fingers. “I can’t just up and leave… I mean, what if something bad happens, like when the Castle got taken over while me and Coran went out to get the crystal the first time? You had to save everyone’s butts.”

“Yes, and I’m not letting anyone forget it, especially Lance. But I’ll let him believe he was the one who took Sendak’s arm off instead of me,” she replied with an evil smirk. “But it’ll be fine. Me, Shiro  _ and _ Allura are all still here. Lance isn’t in the castle, but he’s not that far away. Plus we’re not on Arus anymore-- we’re on Olkarion. It’s not like the Galra can just walk in the front door without us knowing this time.”

Hunk contemplated this, then nodded a bit to himself. “Yeah… yeah, you’re right, Pidge! But… can I really just go? Just for a little bit?”

Pidge got to her feet, looking up at the Yellow Lion. “Yeah, go already! I’ll cover for you. Don’t worry-- I’ll just tell Allura that you’re going there for the power source.”

“Right… you’re the best, Pidge! Yeah, I’ll go!”

He started spurring the Lion into action before suddenly pausing. “Hey, wait… how do you know Lance isn’t in the castle?”

Pidge rolled her eyes. “He’s facing his feelings, or something like that. Now hurry up and go before I change my mind!”

She stepped away from the Lion as it came to life, watching from a safe enough distance as Hunk climbed into its cockpit and then spurred it into action, blasting out through the automatically-opened bay doors, disappearing immediately into the expanse of space.

That was another one down, she supposed. Guess she’d better go standby with her own Lion, in case something went wrong. 

She wasn’t sure how she kept getting caught up in all this, but at least with everyone allowing themselves to be selfish for a little while, some of the tension in the castle was starting to die down. Not go away, mind you, but at least relax a bit.


	4. Shallura Part 1

The castle was quieter than it had been in several days, which Pidge planned to take full advantage of. But first she had to slightly-lie to Allura. She headed up to the bridge, revelling in the silence. There hadn’t been any refugees to save that day, and the rebel forces were at their bases, making repairs after their most recent attacks, so it was so quiet it almost felt eerie.

It really wasn’t any quieter than it had been since they had first been brought into space by the Blue Lion, when there was no one but them and Coran and Allura on the castle-ship, but after weeks, months of constant fighting, rescuing, and harboring, she’d kind of gotten used to the noise.

The bridge doors opened, and Allura, standing at the helm and looking down at Planet Olkarion below, turned around at the sound.

“Oh, Pidge… it’s you. Is something wrong? I noticed the Yellow Lion leaving the castle. Hunk said something about going to the Balmera for repairs?”

Pidge shrugged, avoiding her gaze by pretending to look out the window at the sunset. “He’s trying to make a modification on the Yellow Lion’s armor, but we needed an external power source. So he’s going back for a crystal.”

“Oh… I see…”

Allura sighed, leaning against the control panel. Below them, even planet Olkarion seemed to be falling silent, city lights winking on in the fading golden sunlight. It was a peaceful hush, though-- not like the tense quiet that followed a disaster. Pidge hadn’t really realized that there was a difference until she’d experienced both.

The silence spread until it reached the two of them, both staring out the window, not saying anything. But finally, Allura broke it.

“Pidge, don’t you feel… that it’s very quiet today?” she asked, looking away from the window.

“Um, well, I think everyone’s just taking advantage of the first break we’ve gotten in a while.”

“Yes, I believe that is true, but…”

Pidge noticed Allura fidgeting with her sleeve, a frown etched into her face. “Is something wrong, Princess?”

“Where has everyone gone? I have grown reliant on keeping busy in order to distract myself from my worries, but this quiet is… unsettling to me. Hunk has gone to the Balmera, but where is Lance? And Keith, too? I thought the Blade of Marmora hadn’t left Planet Olkarion yet.”

Pidge froze, wondering if she should tell Allura about the private moment between the two of them that she had accidentally stumbled on. But, then again, Lance had asked her to not tell anyone about it, so she probably shouldn’t. “Hmmm, I dunno. But… what about Shiro? He’s still here.”

“Yes… Shiro…” Allura breathed, looking away. She turned back to Pidge, hesitation in her eyes. “Pidge… can I confide in you about something?”

“Yeah, shoot,” Pidge replied. _It’s not like you’re the first one today_.

“What? Why would I shoot?”

Pidge winced. Right. Altean. “It’s just an expression. To say, you know… go ahead, I guess.”

“Oh. Well… I am worried about Shiro. I know we are all concerned about Keith leaving us to pursue his training with the Blade of Marmora, but… there is something about Shiro that worries me.”

“What, why?”

Allura bit her lip for a moment. “Before we fought Zarkon, I was in charge of the castle, and Shiro was the head of Voltron. It felt like a sort of equal leadership, and I believed we understood each other in that way. And then he went missing, and I became a Paladin of Voltron. I do not regret being able to fight alongside you all, but things have just… not felt the same ever since.”

There was a squeak at her feet, and Allura leaned over to pick up one of the Altean mice, smiling sadly at it as she stroked its fur. “I know I should not be greedy, but there are times when I miss… leading the team together, in our own special ways.”

Pidge glanced out the window, recognizing the black hood and green-and-white hoodie of people she knew very well, and looked quickly back at Allura so that she wouldn’t catch her attention. Especially considering that she, once again, seemed to have caught them at an intimate moment.

Her cheeks even warmed a little as she looked up at Allura, quickly saying, “Maybe it’s because you guys haven’t had a moment just to talk to each other ALONE.” Allura blinked, her full attention now on Pidge. Great, she wasn’t going to look out, now. She just had to keep going for a little while… “I mean, since you’ve both been busy trying to be leaders. You guys just need to, you know… figure out how everything works now.”

Allura nodded slowly. “I suppose you’re right, Pidge. We should… talk.”

“Right, right!” Pidge encouraged, once again finding herself as someone’s romantic adviser for some reason. But she was here already, she might as well just keep going. “But now’s the perfect chance, since no one else is here. To figure things out, I mean.”

The doors to the bridge slid open, and both of them jumped, quickly dropping the conversation in order to greet whoever was entering.

Shiro came in with his usual mellow smile, speaking immediately. “Hey, Matt and some of the other rebel fighters came back for a little while. They need some repairs done by the Olkari, so they were thinking of staying the night in the castle.”

Pidge looked back and forth between Allura and Shiro and then suddenly blurted, “I’ll do it! I’ll make sure they’re all taken care of, leave it to me!” She backed slowly toward the door, spouting,  “absolutely, don’t worry about a _thing_ ; just relax Shiro, I got this!” He gave her a weird look as she retreated, even going so far as opening his mouth to say something, but Pidge quickly turned around and ran out the door, leaving Shiro alone with Allura for a while.

The door closed behind her and she exhaled, both happy to be out of the situation of somebody once again asking her for relationship advice, and happy to finally being able to chat with Matt again. Since he’d know better than _anyone_ not to ask her about that kind of stuff. For the first time that day, Pidge figured she could be free from the center of anyone’s problems, and just be herself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Due to the ambiguity of Allura's age, and some people feeling uncomfortable with the Shallura ship because of that, I'm leaving their relationship up to interpretation here. Personally, I do still kind of ship them, but that's because I don't consider Allura to be as young as the other Paladins, even though she's been described as a "teenager". But I understand people's reservations, so it doesn't have to be romantic if you don't want it to be. :)


	5. Pidge + Matt

“First there was Lance and Keith, because you know they’ve been fighting? It’s just because they’re worried about each other and _I_ got caught in the middle of it. But then they come to me and just blurt out how they feel about each other and I didn’t know what to do! I don’t know anything about liking someone! I know machines, computers, math, binary code! Quantum physics makes _way_ more sense than people’s feelings. Physics is easy. People are complicated,” Pidge grumbled, sitting in the bridge of the rebel ship Matt usually piloted, hooking up some Altean and Olkarian tech to make it run more efficiently. She worked alongside Matt at a calm pace, just venting to him non-stop. He didn’t seem to mind, listening to her ramble with a fond smile on his face.

“And THEN!” she continued, “finally they go off to talk, and I think, ‘oh, I’ll just go talk to Hunk. Hunk is easy to talk to,’ but he complains that me misses Shay… oh yeah, Shay is this alien we met on a Balmera not too far from here, and saved her planet from destruction, and now she’s best friends with Hunk and Allura-- anyway, he misses Shay, and he really really wanted to go visit her, and he was using his modifications to the Yellow Lion as an excuse, so I kinda felt bad and said, ‘okay, just go, honestly. Since you’re not gonna stop thinking about it until you do it.”

Matt laughed. “It sounds like you care a lot about your team, Pidge.” He hoisted himself up to the upper level of the cockpit, hooking up an Altean monitor and booting it up.

She made a face at him. “I just don’t know what to tell them! I mean, not long after we first became a part of Voltron, I tried to leave, so I could focus on finding you and Dad, and Keith totally _lost his shit_ . He yelled at me for thinking of myself more than anyone in the universe, and you know… I get it. But now it feels like everyone else is acting like an idiot, and now they’re coming to _me_ for advice? Even Allura! I’m the youngest person on this ship! I don’t know _anything_ about this stuff!”

Matt dropped back down to the floor and rested a hand on her shoulder, giving it a gentle squeeze as he said, “I think everyone’s coming to you about these things _because_ you don’t know anything about it, Pidge.”

She looked up at him, frowning. “Huh?”

He sat down in the pilot’s seat next to her, looking out the cockpit window at the Castle’s docking bay as he tried to explain. “You don’t have any personal biases because you see yourself as outside the issue. People are easily overcome by their emotions, so they don’t always think clearly. But you, Pidge-- you’re able to look at the problem with a clear head and think of the most logical solution. Sometimes people need that.”

She crossed her armed, glowering down at the computer screen. “It’s not like I don’t feel anything… I mean, I care a lot about everyone in this castle. I want them to stop fighting, to get along. It’s just… what if I’m wrong? What if they follow my advice, and it just makes things worse? Wouldn’t that just make it… my fault?”

Matt patted her head, then jumped to his feet. “My sister? Make a mistake? No way!”

She smirked, unable to help it. She’d missed Matt _so much_.

“I mean, think about all the stuff you’ve done! You figured out a simple algorithm to translate Altean into English! You made a program that predicts where the Galra are going to attack-- color-coded! You’re a Paladin of Voltron!” He leaned over, grinning encouragingly. “You can handle anything, even a bunch of idiots in love with each other.”

Pidge exhaled a laugh, getting to her feet. “Yeah… thanks, Matt. Um, I think all of the repairs are done, so we can go get lunch, if you want.”

“Yeah, sure!”

They started to head out of the cockpit, but Pidge paused, contemplating something.

“What’s up?” Matt asked.

“Well, I’m just thinking… if I’m everyone’s voice of reason, like you said… then what happens if _I’m_ the one who’s being emotional? It’s not like it can’t happen. I feel emotions, just not… not really romantic ones. What is anyone going to do if _I_ get in a fight?”

Matt frowned, thinking about this, and then he looked back up at her, his whole face lighting up, a familiar smile spreading across his face. It was the same look he’d always worn when saying “what the Garrison doesn’t know won’t hurt them!” The look of someone who was willing to put in just a little bit of risk for a lot of reward.

“Well,” he started, “why don’t we find out?”

“How?”

He shrugged, tapping his fingers on his arm. “Hey Pidge, you want to get in a fight with each other?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A short chapter, pretty much just as a mid-way for what's gonna happen next!


	6. Klance Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So what was going on with Keith and Lance while Pidge was talking to Hunk? Well…

Lance sat in the Red Lion’s cockpit, sitting up close to the controls and imagining a big, intense battle, Galra fighters all around them. And Lance, in the fastest Lion of all. Wait, no no no, he was doing this to get in Keith’s head. In the middle of a big fight like this, what did Keith do, back when he was in Red?

"Wait, what about that time he went dashing through the asteroid field after Rollo? That was pretty amazing, the way everyone else tells it…" he muttered to himself, imagining the kind of quick thinking that kind of thing would require. He imagined doing it himself, and it always ended in him crashing. What was going through Keith’s head when he did that, not hesitating even a little? Why had he plunged into the asteroid field like that in the first place?

Oh… right. It was because Rollo and Nyma had abducted the Blue Lion after Lance had been an idiot and gotten himself chained to a tree. Keith had had to fly into the asteroid field after Rollo to get it back. But what had he been _thinking_?

Lance set a determined scowl into his face and scootched up tighter to the controls, imagining himself to be the ever-serious, ever-compact Keith, following Rollo through the field. “If I can get this Lion back, I can make fun of Lance!” He laughed, still trying to be serious. No, that didn’t sound like Keith _at all_ … how could he be serious and mock Lance at the same time? Nope, it was something else… Something… he had to think, carefully, clearly… _what would Keith do?_

The doors to the shoot that usually deposited the speeder into the Red Lion suddenly slid open, and Lance practically jumped out of his skin, releasing a high-pitched scream from inside the Lion, until he realized it was of Keith, completely out of breath, leaning against the now-open doorway.

He jumped out of the pilot’s seat, asking Red to open its mouth so he could climb out.

“Hey, hey, hey, what do _you_ think you’re doing?!” he yelled, crossing his arms as he came out of the Red Lion’s maw towards Keith, eyeing him suspiciously. “Red’s mine now. No takebacks. If you’re gonna leave you don’t get to mess with _my_ Lion whenever you want!”

Keith glared at him, wiping sweat off his forehead. “I’m not _here_ for Red!”

“Oh, so you came all the way to _this specific_ docking bay because… what, you got lost? I know you’ve been with the Blade of Marmora for a while, but I’m pretty sure you still know how to get around.”

“What? No, I-- I obviously came here looking for _you_!” Keith yelled, straightening up, his face still tinged pink.

“For what, exactly? I thought you were all ‘team Blade of Marmora’ now.”

“I wanted to talk to you.”

“Well, if it’s about Voltron, maybe you should talk to Shiro. Since, you know… all we do is fight.”

Keith’s eyebrows furrowed, and he avoided looking at Lance. “No, I need to talk to _you_.”

Lance blinked, stunned by the idea. Why would Keith _want_ to talk to him?

But, after all, Pidge _had_ told him “since yelling at each other isn’t working, maybe talking like normal, civilized people is a good next step”. He’d just gotten a little too focused on the following part, about he and Keith having something in common since they both piloted the Red Lion. So maybe he should at least… try.

He began heading out the chute, back toward the castle core, pausing in the doorway without looking back at Keith. “You know… you left me some pretty big shoes to fill.”

“But I’ve got tiny feet. _You_ made fun of me for it.”

Lance snorted, knowing that Keith probably wasn’t joking, which is what made it funnier. “Yes, and I stand by that. They’re adorable, like Cinderella’s.”

“Are you just going to keep making comments about my feet?”

“Okay yeah, I wasn’t talking about your _actual_ shoes, I meant, Keith, that the Red Lion is a big responsibility, and it’s something you made look easy.” He bit at the inside of his cheek, working through the nerves and the whole feeling of _weird_ that the idea of saying any of these things to Keith gave him.

“What? Flying Red was never _easy_! You just need more time to get used to it. I know you can,” Keith insisted, his voice, unexpectedly, shaking a little.

“That’s not what I mean.” Lance said, even as they continued down the hall back toward the castle proper. “I mean… every time I fly Red, I think of you.”

There was a slight strangled sound from behind him, and Lance turned around to look at Keith, but he was looking away, his hood tucked over his face as he looked down at his feet.

“Just _being_ the right arm of Voltron is still so weird to me, without you in it,” Lance continued, knowing that if he let himself stop there, he’d never get the rest out. “Don’t get me wrong, I adore Shiro, and he’s still my hero, y’know? But he’s not you. And piloting Red felt _right_ when you were a part of the team. Even if maybe you were kind of a awful leader… I really thought you could do it. Because you can do anything. It’s kind of… what I hate about you.”

They’d reached the doors back to the main core of the castle, and Lance stopped and looked back, not liking the idea of any regular person hearing their conversation.

“You really think I can do _anything_ ?” Keith blurted, his hood falling back behind his shoulders and good _God_ he looked beautiful. “But I don’t even get your jokes. You’re always explaining things to me, whether it’s movies or Pidge and Hunk and Matt talking about science or even… even that stupid cheer!”

Lance felt an involuntary laugh go through him. “I know you’ll understand it eventually.”

They went out into the main foyer, and Lance stopped, looking back at Keith. He hadn’t said all that he’d wanted to, but he didn’t want to say it there.

“Hey, why don’t we go on patrol?” he suggested, pointing out the door. “We can… make sure everyone is safe.”

Keith’s face looked especially red, and he was fingering the edge of his hood as if debating whether or not he would shove it back over his head. “Yeah… sure. It might be nice to get outside.”

Lance reached back and slipped his hand into Keith’s, hoping it was enough to ensure that the other boy wouldn’t change his mind as they strolled out into the sunlight.

Keith squeezed it once, then pulled away, falling silent as they passed by a pair of chatting Olkari civilians. As soon as they were out of earshot, he said, “I can’t be Shiro. I tried to and I just… I put everyone in danger. You said so yourself.”

“Yeah, I get it,” Lance shrugged, turning back to him with a smile. “You can’t be Shiro any more than I can be you. But you know… you don’t have to be a Paladin. You just have to… not leave.”

“I never wanted to leave. I just hated that you think that _you_ didn’t belong.” He stuck his pinky up, holding it up to Lance with a shy smile. “I figured it out.”

Lance felt his lip quiver as he held up his own pinky, wondering if they were _really_ doing this. Wondering if maybe he was wrong to be worried that he was the only one feeling this way.

Keith laughed a little bit, saying, “I guess we’re both kind of the odd man out.” And then they twined their pinkies together, smiling for a silent moment.

The silence continued as they walked around, their pinkies still touching. Lance started talking, recalling memories of how they first met, or, well, the first time Keith remembered, when they rescued Shiro. And then first trying to form Voltron, when they both ran their Lions into the ground during Coran’s training exercise.

“Yeah, that was your fault,” Keith laughed, the red having left his cheeks, but a little tinge of pink staying in its place. It was nice to hear Keith laugh, after doing nothing but fight for ages. Pidge was really _onto something_ with the whole “maybe you should just talk to each other” thing.

“But then we were in the Balmera that one time, right? That was awesome, right? Not the part where we all got trapped in the Balmera’s core and Shay’s family had to save us. Before that. When we had to get past those soldiers without hurting the Balmera. That was cool, right?”

Keith paused, lifting up their twined hands with a pained smile. “Yeah, that actually worked better than I thought it would. Sometimes I’m happy I have you to stop me from doing something impulsive. Sometimes… we make an okay team.”

“We really _do_ make a great team,” Lance murmured, staring at their fingers, loving how small and calloused Keith’s were.

Keith jerked away suddenly, yelling, “SO YOU _DO_ REMEMBER!”

Lance tilted his head to the side. “Remember what?”

“Th-the-- after Sendak’s bomb! When you got hurt, and we got locked out the castle and Hunk and Coran had to go get the crystal from the Balmera, and Shiro fought Sendak and Pidge had to infiltrate it on the inside…”

“Ohhhh yeah, that. The time that you _cradled me in your arms_.” He laughed, strolling away from the Castle entrance and spreading his arms theatrically. “Yup, that’s totally something I can see you doing. Clinging tightly to my unconscious body, believing that I might die!” He turned back around, chuckling. “Yeah I can’t see you doing that at… all… Keith, are you okay?”

Keith was bright red, looking fixedly away from him. “Don’t joke about that! I really thought you might die!”

The words jolted through Lance like electricity, as he recognized them in himself. The real reason he’d been so angry with Keith ever since Naxzela.

“Woah, Keith, calm down, I was just joking.”

“Well I’m _not_ . Look, you’re the first person that made _sense_ to me except Shiro. I hated it at the garrison. People always said these really weird, irrelevant things and I never understood, but you always just explained things without asking. And I felt like, if you were gone, I don’t think I would understand anyone again.”

He was breaking, wrapping his arms tightly around himself as if to hold himself together. “At least not anyone human.”

Lance stepped closer to him, hesitantly putting a hand on his shoulder. “Keith…”

“Maybe that’s why I thought it was better if I stayed with the Blade of Marmora. They’re Galra, right? I guess they were just easier for me to understand than other… than humans.”

Lance stood up straight, answering firmly, “but you’re NOT Galra.”

“What? Don’t you--?”

“Look,” Lance interrupted, “whoever your parents are, or how you fight, it doesn’t change the fact that you were born and raised on Earth, same as the rest of us. You _have_ a family, and it’s right here, with us. Because we love you, Keith. _I_ love you.”

Silence fell again, spreading out along the Olkarian sunrise in shades of red and violet, reminding Lance of Keith himself. Because it’s red blending with purple, and it’s beautiful and warm, but far away. But why the silence? Did Lance say something wrong?

And then he realized that Keith was _crying_ , tears leaking out of his eyes and straight down the pale, clear skin of his shocked face, and suddenly Lance was thinking _oh shit oh shit oh shit what have I done?!_ He pressed closer, unable to resist the urge to reach out and feel the tears under his fingertips, just to make sure they were real.

“Dammit, don’t look at me!” Keith shouted back, yanking his hood back over his head to hide his face. “I hate crying.”

“No. No no no, I’m going to keep looking at that face, because I need to commit it to memory before it disappears again,” Lance replied, keeping his voice low and soft. And then they were crumbling, down onto the ground in a warm, crying pile.

“Y’know, it’s okay to cry, Keith,” he said, holding tight to that beautiful boy. “Everyone cries, sometime in their life. It makes you human.”

And he kept rubbing his thumb over Keith’s face, wiping away the tears as they came. “Since you _are_ human, and I _do_ love you.”

And then Keith leaned up and kissed him. Which Lance wasn’t exactly expecting, but hell, it was nice. He could do it a million times.

~~~

They stayed out well until dark, talking, bonding, holding hands, pinkies, and, of course, kissing occasionally. Because why not?

And then finally they figured that they were definitely not doing too well at this whole “patrol” thing, so they went back into the Castle of Lions.

Just in time to hear the yelling.

“WHY WOULD YOU CHANGE MY PROGRAM?! IT TOOK ME WEEKS TO FIGURE OUT HOW TO DO THAT?!”

Keith and Lance exchanged surprised glances at the sight of Pidge screaming at Matt from the top of the stairway.

“I was just trying to help!” he shouted back.

“Hey, just because you’re older doesn’t mean you’re smarter! You don’t even know Altean tech that well!”

The two boys looked back at each other, wondering exactly what had happened while they’d been out on “patrol”, finding out what was going on in each other’s hearts. Obviously, it was something wild and insane, to turn the Holt siblings against each other.


	7. Hunay Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lance and Keith had a pretty intimate moment while Pidge was talking to Allura about Hunk going to the Balmera. And while that’s happening, Hunk’s on his way…

Pretty much immediately after leaving the Castle, Hunk regretted his decision. It was too quiet out in space when he was flying alone. He was pretty sure it was one of the first times he’d flown alone. Like, totally alone. No one in the cockpit with him, no one talking to him over the comm links as they flew alongside him… just… totally… empty… silence...

“AAAAAAAHHHHH I CAN’T DO THIS!” He shouted, yanking back on Yellow’s controls and jerking his Lion to a stop in the midst of empty space. The silence was driving him crazy. He didn’t like it. It left him alone with his thoughts, which was NEVER something he enjoyed. He liked quiet when he had something nice to do, to focus on, so that his brain couldn’t just…  _ wander _ , because it never tended to wander anywhere good. 

Except maybe to Shay. Sometimes he’d be in the middle of doing something and his mind would drift from the possibility of a horrific death to the sound of her voice, or her big strong arms, or her interesting yellow eyes, or the warm way she’d talked about the Balmera. Times like that, he didn’t mind so much when his mind wandered. 

He tapped his thumb anxiously against the side of the control stick, looking out at the swirling mass of space, everything in a constant state of fluid turbulence, luminescence, movement. Behind him was the safety of the Planet Olkarion and the Castle of Lions, and in front of him was the vast, empty quiet of space.  
Except it wasn’t, was it? Not the Castle being safe, nor space being empty. The Castle was currently filled with the conflicting forces of Keith and Lance, who he was starting to get a little tired of keeping separated, and the awkward energies of Shiro and Allura, who used to blend together so well, like light from two distant stars seeming to fuse into one bright shape, but now they’d moved away from each other so much, they looked like two completely different colors. And it wasn’t like he’d decided on the journey into space just to go into _space_. He was going somewhere _specific._ So clearly space wasn’t _empty_. He was just being a bit crazy. 

And besides, part of the reason he missed Shay so much was because it was so  _ easy _ to be with her. Don’t get him wrong, Hunk loved Lance and Keith as much as he could possibly love anybody, even though they could be so difficult-- maybe even  _ because _ they were-- but they tired him out a bit. Lance with his constant desire to have fun (occasionally leading to getting in trouble), and Keith with his personal emotional issues. Which, you know, Hunk totally understood. Well, not totally, since it wasn’t like he’d had any kind of real parentage issues, especially not of the “my-mom’s-an-alien” kind, but he was pretty sure he got the concept, and he wasn’t gonna make it harder for Keith than it needed to be. But sometimes he just got a little bit tired of walking on needles around it, since neither of them were acting very… straightforward about what they were thinking and how they were feeling, despite what he could pretty clearly see in them.

And hell, who even  _ knew _ what Shiro and Allura were thinking half the time. Nothing bad (probably), but sometimes he was pretty sure they were worried as much as he was about things, they just somehow managed to not show it. Like, at all. Maybe Allura did a little, but Shiro could have been a master at poker, because, man, that guy never looked worried. 

Compared to all of that, Shay was relaxing. She was honest, straightforward, easy to read, both in her body language and actual speech. Actually, there was something so incredibly genuine about the way Balmerans spoke, like it was hard for them to even try to lie. He missed that kind of casual honesty, the calm familial affection, the subtle strength. He missed Shay, who had been the first person to really make him  _ want _ to be a Paladin. To help people protect their families the same way he wanted to protect his.

He took a couple of breaths, and finally gently pushed the controls forward, sending Yellow forward through the depths of space, toward the Balmera. Toward a place that really did feel safe to him.

~

He felt his heart settle a bit when he was lowering Yellow down onto the surface of the planet-sized animal, and saw Shay making her way out of the tunnels to greet him, clearly having been called by the other Balmerans when they’d seen the Yellow Lion heading into the atmosphere.

“Hunk! It has been many days!” She called out happily as he stepped out of the Lion’s mouth, jogging up to him.

“Shay! Man, am I happy to see you.” he sighed as he reached the ground, looking up at her, as usual. 

“I as well have wished very deeply to see you again, Hunk,” she answered immediately, and Hunk felt the last of the weight in his heart lift. He’d been just about to start worrying that maybe she didn’t like him as much as he liked her, or that she thought it weird that he was there alone, or maybe she would be weirded out by the fact that he liked her because she was, y’know, an alien…

But all that evaporated when he saw her smile. “I just kinda… came by for a visit, really,” he said, laughing a little nervously. 

She tilted her head to the side a bit, her eyebrows furrowing. “A visit? Are you alright? Has nothing bad happened with the Voltron Coalition? The last of the news we heard was that Voltron had been caught in a trap set by the Galra witch, and that you may not have escaped were it not for the aid of a former Galra prince whom most of the coalition suggests that you do not trust. Was this not so?”

Hunk blushed a little bit. “Um, yeah… that’s… pretty much right. But, I kinda needed a break for a little while. Oh, but I’m not just here for fun. I should grab a Balmeran crystal while I’m here. Just a small one, though. For an experiment.”

Shay nodded seriously, holding out her hand. “I will be most eager to aid you in your search. But you must tell me of your adventures! Have you seen many wonderful things since we last spoke?”

“Some wonderful, some kind of scary. And some both at the same time,” he admitted, happily taking her hand as they walked. “Like, this one planet, the atmosphere was made of a super explosive gas, but sunlight was one of the most interesting places I’ve ever seen. Oh! And I think there was this pair of girls who claimed I had to marry them, which was awkward, and I felt bad turning them down, but…”

~

“So yeah, Coran says it looks the closest to what Altea looked like. It’s pretty nice, I guess, but I actually thought the planet next to it was even better, because the sulfur in the atmosphere does this  _ really _ crazy thing when the sunlight hits it…”

He paused, noting that Shay’s questions had come to a halt, where before she had been merciless with them, asking him to describe every single scene he had encountered, including the smell of the air, the texture of the ground beneath his boots. “Shay? You okay?”

She peeked at him around the peak of a shimmering crystal, her expression contemplative. “I’m alright. I apologize, Hunk. I have just been imagining all of these places, and have forgotten myself. Shall we continue?”

“Do you need a break?” he asked, frowning. “I mean, seriously, coming to get the crystal wasn’t, like, a major thing. Just kind of a personal project I work on in my spare time, so you don’t need to stress out about it.”

“I am alright, Hunk,” she laughed, her yellow eyes seeming to glow just a little bit brighter for a moment. “But if you would, I may request your assistance.”

“Oh, yeah, sure! Whatever you need!”

“May I borrow your energy?”

“Y-yeah! What d’you need me to do?”

“To retrieve the crystal, I’m going to place my hands against it. Would you place your hands on top of mine, and concentrate on the flow of energy from yourself into the crystal?”

“Yeah! Sure!” 

She nodded, and placed her hands on the warm, glowing surface of the crystal, and, a bit nervously, Hunk did as asked, noting that her skin didn’t feel particularly warm, or soft, but he still liked the feeling of it, liked seeing how small his hands looked compared to hers.

“Is it working?” he asked, feeling a bit… fluttery? Is that a good word for it?

Shay chuckled a bit. “You must be patient, Hunk. And relax.”

“Oh, right. Sorry.”

He closed his eyes, and through his eyelids, he could see the crystal glow a bit, and then he heard the sound of the rocks tumbling away from it, and it gave underneath Shay’s grip.

He opened his eyes, and gently lifted his hands away from hers, to give the ground of the Balmera beneath him a good pat. “Thanks, Balmera,” he cooed, to be met with another chuckle from Shay. He felt a little tired, after giving up that energy, but it was okay. “Hey, you want to come back with me?”

“To the Castle?” Shay replied incredulously.

“Just for a little visit. I don’t think I’m the only one who missed you, and besides, I might need a Balmera Crystal expert to help me interface this thing with Voltron. And… I have a lot of sunrises I want to show you.” 

Shay looked up, over at the glittering surface of the Balmera, smiling warmly. “You have already shown me so much, Hunk.”

“The universe is so big, Shay. Like, crazy big. And it just keeps getting bigger, in so many different ways.” He plopped down next to her, giving the crystal a final tug to pull it out of the dirt and rest it in his lap. It wasn’t a huge crystal, about the size of a small backpack, but still fairly heavy. “Sometimes you want to adventure. And sometimes you just kinda want to stay where it’s safe, and happy, and familiar. So I think, if you don’t want to go anywhere, I’m okay with that. I’ll stay here, too, then.”

Shay shook her head, getting to her feet. “No, Hunk, I would love to travel with you for a while. The Balmera has shown me many different sunrises, but none have been quite so lovely as the one I saw with you.”

~

It was really fun to go flying to a bunch of different places with Shay in the cockpit next to him (after checking at least three times to make sure they were safe), because he loved seeing the look of complete, undisguised wonder on her face when he introduced her to this one asteroid field made completely of iridescent metal that changed colors as the light from the Yellow Lion passed over it, or a gas giant whose patterned red-and-pink clouds miraculously seemed to look just like a rose, which he then had to explain to her. And then the final destination was this one planet he initially went to because he’d heard it was a good place to find rare metals, but had found something even better.

“Okay, this is the best one,” he said with glee, unable to hide his excitement about what her face would look like when she saw it. 

“There is nothing but darkness here?” she questioned, leaning over the control panel and looking curiously at the Lion’s visual display.

“Just wait… twelve seconds. Ticks,” Hunk answered, looking carefully at a small sub-screen in front of him.

“Alright?”

He counted off the seconds, each of which felt like an eternity when he was trying to show the final result to someone. He really wasn’t as good at theatrics as Lance was, but he did like making people happy, so this was the best he could do.

The twelfth second finally arrived, and Shay looked out at the window, frowning. “I do not see anything, Hunk.”

And just then, the sky exploded into color. Gold shot through the black of the sky, spreading immediately into orange, red, swirling into pink, blue, green, shimmering and swirling with wispy clouds. 

He heard the breath catch in her throat and felt perfectly satisfied.

“It’s pretty great, right?”

“How does it do this?!”

“The atmosphere of this planet, and its shape, is just right so that the sun doesn’t really come over a gentle curve so much as it just goes straight from no light at all to a bunch of light all at once. And then the atmosphere diffuses the light across different types of gas particles, so it does this. It’s seriously the best sunrise I’ve ever seen, so I… wanted you to see it, too.”

“I love it!” she squeaked, leaning over and giving him a tight hug, pressing the rock-like skin of her face against his cheek, which would probably have hurt a little if he didn’t feel so happy just then.

“It’s kinda like when you take a bite of a chili pepper and at first it’s like, ‘oh, I don’t really taste anything…’ and then BAM, your mouth explodes with flavor.”

She laughed, looking a bit embarrassed. “It has only been a short time since my people have been able to eat any variety of foods outside those available to us in the caves. So I’m afraid I don’t understand the comparison.”

“Oh I can fix that. I can make a pretty decent meal with nothing but space goo, weird Arusian tubers, Olkarian veggies, some milk from Kalteneker, and whatever random spices Coran gives me. I even made cocoa one time. Though I haven’t been able to make it again…”

“It sounds delicious.”

“Do you wanna try it? I can whip something up pretty quick back at the castle. Before we install the crystal, I mean.”

“I would love to! I am most eager to try your cooking. And I miss so many of the Paladins.”

“Yeah, I think they’ll be happy to see you, too. So let’s go!”

He urged the Yellow Lion forward and upwards, sailing calmly past the swirling sunrise atmosphere, which was already beginning to settle into a somewhat unpleasant pea-green. Which is why the beauty of its sunrise had been so much of a surprise. 

And hey, maybe things had finally calmed down while he was gone.

~

No. No, they had not. 

“Do you have ANY idea what it felt like, to think that, after all of that searching, you were DEAD?!” Pidge was screaming at the top of the stairs of the main foyer, held tightly around Lance, who appeared to be the only thing keeping her back from launching at her brother. Although it definitely didn’t look easy. Sometimes her struggling even got her feet off the ground and threatened to send both of them tumbling down the staircase.

“It was just a  _ ruse _ ! I knew you would figure it out!” Matt shouted back, who was, in turn, being held back by Keith, who looked twice as disturbed by the whole scene as Lance did. Matt was a bit taller than him, but Keith didn’t seem to be having quite as much trouble holding him back as Lance did Pidge. Maybe because Matt didn’t look quite so  _ furious _ .

“I don’t care! For a few seconds, even a few minutes, I felt like I’d been fighting for  _ nothing, _ Matt! That I’d looked so fucking  _ hard _ , only to be too late. If you’re so damn smart, you could have thought of  _ something _ besides “make my own sister believe I’m dead!”

Hunk had been holding his helmet under his arm as he chatted with Shay, and now he allowed it to clatter to the floor in his complete shock, unable to put together the pieces of what had been happening when he  _ left _ , and what he was seeing now that he was  _ back _ .

“If I hadn’t done it, I might actually  _ be _ dead!” Matt shouted back, struggling against Keith’s grasp. 

“Maybe it would be better if you were!” Pidge screamed, and suddenly her bayard was out, and she’d given Lance a good enough zap to make him involuntarily let go of her, and then she was hurtling down the stairs at Matt, her bayard whipping out just in time for the main doors to open and reveal Coran, who, for the briefest instant, looked like he had been peacefully humming to himself. An expression which turned instantly to horror/panic/fear/confusion as he narrowly avoided getting his moustache sliced off by the sharp end of Pidge’s bayard.

Keith was forced to let go of Matt in his attempt to duck out of the way, and then suddenly the siblings were fighting ferociously, once or twice the combat getting dangerously close to hitting the massive overhead chandelier. Coran screamed, and then Keith had his bayard out, and Lance was yelling at him that adding another weapon into the fray could just hurt  _ both _ the Holt siblings, and then Shay was asking Hunk what was happening, if this was normal, and all he could do was stare in awed horror as he shook his head.

“I have no idea what’s happening right now, Shay, honestly.”

And just then, Pidge’s bayard caught the edge of the chandelier, and Coran screamed. “No no no no no not that! That was handmade by my great-grandfather! Really, you two, calm down, kids!”

They didn’t. Lance and Keith had decided to run forward and try to separate the fighting siblings again, despite the danger, and there were decided marks of combat appearing in the gleaming floors. 

“Hunk, help me!” Lance shouted, with just enough urgency to break Hunk out of his paralysis.

“Okay, um, what should I do?!” He said, dodging a strike from Matt’s staff. 

“ANYTHING!” Keith screamed, finally grabbing hold of the back of Pidge’s shirt just as her bayard lashed out and wrapped again around the chandelier, sending a jolt of electricity through it, and then plunging the room into darkness.

And that’s when Coran finally decided to push the emergency alarm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the wait, everyone! First there was finals, and then I got distracted watching TV shows, and then it was time to get ready to go to my study abroad in Japan, and then I was moving into my temporary apartment in Japan, and then getting adjusted...  
> Just one thing after another. But I'm hoping to finish this fic in any free time I have when I'm not out adventuring! Thank you all for your patience!


	8. Shallura Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lance and Keith have bonded, Hunk and Shay are relaxed, but Shiro and Allura still have some issues to work through.

The silence between Allura and Shiro seemed to stretch on for hours since the moment Pidge had made her mad dash from the room, both of them just kind of staring at the door she had disappeared through in startled confusion. And even after they finally recovered from  _ that _ , there was the issue that neither of them was really willing to be the first one to speak. Especially since neither of them really had any idea what to say.

Finally, Shiro let his eyes flick over to the Princess, raising an eyebrow. “What was  _ that _ about?”

Allura turned away from him quickly, focusing intently on the control panel in front of her. Although Shiro noticed that she was just randomly pushing buttons instead of actually accomplishing anything, he decided to pretend that he didn’t.

“I can’t say,” Allura finally answered, her voice sounding as steady and strong as it ever did. “Sometimes I am unsure whether it is because you are all human that I don’t understand you, or if it is simply because you’re you.”

She seemed like she was going to say something after that, so Shiro waited for her to continue. But as the silence continued to stretch on, he got the sense that he was somehow making her uncomfortable again. He seemed to be doing that a lot recently, though he wasn’t sure why. He knew that the team still hadn’t really felt balanced ever since he’d disappeared from Voltron just after defeating Zarkon, and his return had only unbalanced it further, so he supposed he couldn’t blame her for feeling a bit confused with how to interact with him. 

“Yeah, I don’t think I would consider Lance, Pidge, and Hunk your average human beings,” he chuckled, hoping that what they had going was a real conversation for once.

But his hopes were dashed when Allura didn’t respond, her eyes fixed on the screen in front of her, although she’d stopped the facade of action, instead just staring intently into an empty screen, her hands tight around the edge of the control panel.

“Well… I guess that’s all I came up here for, so I’ll just… get back to the Olkari, then,” he muttered, turning to head out the door.

“Wait.”

He turned in mild surprise, watching the white wisps of Allura’s hair float around her like clouds as she finally turned off the screen and sighed, closing her eyes for a moment as she took a deep breath and faced him. When she opened them, her gaze was intense and direct, her eyebrows furrowed with determination.

“Yes, Princess?” he answered, managing to disguise the awe in his voice with confusion.

“I must speak with you… about Voltron.” Her shoulders relaxed as she said this, finally starting in a way that was familiar to them. If maybe she couldn’t yet manage to discuss her personal feelings just yet, she could at least talk to Shiro about Voltron, the thing most important to both of them. Probably the only thing keeping them together at all at this point. 

No, she couldn’t afford to think that way.

“Shiro… how do you feel, having me as a member of Voltron? Truly.”

“You’re an excellent pilot, and a fast learner. I think I’d be an idiot if I said I wasn’t a little impressed, maybe even a little bit afraid.”

Allura cracked a smile, and this time it was Shiro’s turn to relax.

It faded quickly, though, and then Allura was turning away from him again, looking out the castle’s window at the lights of the Olkari city below them, the lights winking on all around as sunset eased into twilight. “I mean, is it strange, to fight alongside me, truly? You were not present when we were forced to forge new identities. Lance, Keith, and myself… to us it had been sudden enough, but we at least knew what was happening as it did. To you it must have been quite a shock.”

Shiro shrugged. “Y’know, after all of the things that have happened to me over the past couple of years, there isn’t a lot that shocks me anymore. But if you mean if I feel uncomfortable having you as part of the team… that wasn’t a surprise. I guess I always kind of thought that it was weird that all of us could be Paladins when you, the one closest of all to the Lions of Voltron, couldn’t be.”

He decided to take a step towards her, but halted when she crossed her arms defensively, although probably subconsciously. The number of times he’d been held prisoner had made him pretty good at reading body language, humanoid or otherwise.

“I am the one who trained all of you, who gave you orders, even allowed you to suffer when I thought it was necessary. Can you truly say that after that, I feel like a natural part of the team?”

“You’ve always been a part of this team, Allura,” Shiro answered, straightforwardly, standing next to her as she looked out the windows, but a safe distance away so she wouldn’t feel uncomfortable. 

“Of course, but now it’s different.” She turned again, beginning to twist a finger through her hair nervously as she spoke. “It seems as if… ever since you all arrived here, we’ve never once been able to fully adjust to the roles thrust upon us before suddenly everything shifts. We were finally standing on our own as Team Voltron, with you as the leader, truly ready to be the Defenders of the universe.” She paused, letting the hair flow out of her hands. “But then you vanished, and it felt as if everything had tipped sideways. What used to be level ground was suddenly a difficult slope to climb.”

She winced again, looking up at him. “But we managed it, with difficulty. We put a lot of pressure on Keith, I realize that now. And I regret it. But at the time, I saw no other way. And then we hadn’t even truly managed to understand our new roles before you were back again. Even now I’m not sure where I’m standing. I worry that, as long as I have been guiding Voltron from within this castle, I may have a difficult time accepting orders from you,” she said with a sly smile, to lighten the mood at the last moment.

But Shiro’s voice wasn’t sly or joking when he looked her directly in the eyes, his voice dropping to a gently softness Allura was sure she’d never heard before as he answered, “I’d never dream of giving you orders, Princess.”

At this, she was stunned for a moment, looking up at him, before she finally relaxed again, her arms uncrossing, falling loosely at her sides as she smiled. “You’re not a very efficient leader, Takashi Shirogane,” she chided, her first attempt at saying Shiro’s full name feeling odd and jumbled in her mouth. 

“Hey, when I first got pulled into all of this, my team was an old man and a genius. I never really thought back then I was being any kind of leader.” He shrugged. “We were just supposed to be collecting samples, when next thing I know I’m fighting gladiators, undergoing alien experiments, and then escaping from prison only to end up captured by my own people.” 

Allura blinked. This was one of the first times she’d really heard him talk about his experiences without deftly sliding over the subject, removing most of the emotion and pain from the equation, only telling the team the bare minimum of what they needed to know.

“This whole time I’ve just been trying to stay alive and stay sane, and hoping for the best. I don’t know if I would have been able to keep those crazy kids alive if we’d never come to you, Allura. So you’re honestly every bit a Paladin of Voltron as I am, and every bit a leader. If not more so.”

She looked up at him again, this time taking time to scan over his appearance; the change of clothes, the shock of white hair startling against the black growing out in the back of his head, the scar straight across his nose, and the dim violet glow of his robotic arm, even underneath the fabric of his shirt. Vaguely, she wondered how many of his scars she couldn’t see, not just hidden under fabric, but hidden under layers of hardened skin and bone, deep in shadowy places in his core.

“I watched my planet die,” she said out loud, stepping back as she said them, not sure where the words had come from. But there they were, hanging between them. “I saw my people slaughtered. I was lucky… only thanks to my father and Coran was I asleep when Altea was destroyed.”

“I can’t imagine… having to live through that.”

Before she knew it, it was all pouring out of her, like a river she’d kept dammed up, and suddenly let free. Being just a child when things started going sour between Zarkon and Alfor, not understanding why such good friends were fighting, and then feeling helpless when her good, kind Aunt Honerva began to snap at the slightest things, no longer attending any events, festivals, birthdays… and then the big disaster on Daibazaal, where Zarkon and Honerva had died, the Alteans had thought. And then, before she knew it, there was war, and her cousins were dying, and her father was putting her in a cryopod and saying he loved her. And then she woke up, and the only person she knew was Coran, and she had absolutely no choice but to trust a group of complete strangers with not only her whole life, but the fate of the universe.

And through all of it, Shiro just sat and listened, sometimes talking about his own experiences, how most of the time, he didn’t really remember the experiments Haggar and the Druids did on him most of the time, but sometimes he’d be doing something normal, like talking to Matt, or going to sleep, and he’d remember it, and he’d have to resist the urge to scream out of nowhere.

“I’m pretty much on the edge of a nervous breakdown at any moment,” he joked.

“That makes two of us,” Allura replied, enjoying the relief of finally telling all of this to someone, especially since that person was Shiro. For the first time in a while, they felt like a unit again, a pair of leaders, sharing their experiences, their difficulties. 

She didn’t really know when they’d ended up sitting on the floor, their backs leaned up against the side of the control panel as they talked, but that’s where they were, steadily moving closer to each other as they talked, the empty silence that had stretched between them for so long melting away until Shiro was almost leaning against her, allowing himself to look properly exhausted.

And that’s when the emergency alarm went off.

~

Red lights flashed through the corridors as Allura and Shiro hurried to the location that the castle controls had indicated the alarm had been pulled. Any Olkari engineers, Coalition refugees, or rebel fighters staying as guests were fleeing quickly through the halls, prompted to evacuate by castle voice recordings overlapping with sirens. 

“What’s going on?!” she asked one of the refugees running by her, catching it by the arm.

“I don’t know!” the alien responded, its eyes wild with panic. “There’s some disturbance in the entrance hall! The power went out, and we can hear combat inside. But please, help! I cannot find my daughter!”

For a moment, Allura locked eyes with Shiro, and then nodded. He stood up, gave her one last encouraging smile, and then ran off toward the entrance hall, while Allura took the alien refugee by the hand and guided him toward the nearest exit, promising to find his daughter herself.

~

The scene Shiro saw when he managed to force his way into the main entrance hall was certainly not what he’d been expecting. Invaders? Maybe. Fire? Possible. But Pidge glaring at each other as bayard clashed with quarterstaff? Not exactly.

Keith had Pidge by the back of the shirt and was managing to pull her away from Matt, and Hunk had figured out a way to grab hold of Pidge’s bayard without getting shocked, and was forcing it out of her hands, while Lance grabbed hold of Matt, yanking him backwards.

“Jesus, Pidge, would you SIT STILL!” Keith yelled, wrapping his arms around her middle just as she tried to slip out of her jacket to get away from him.

“Hey, Shay, I hate to ask this of you, since you’re a guest and all… but can you just… hang on to one of these guys for me?” Hunk asked, finally getting both Pidge’s bayard and Matt’s quarterstaff away from both parties.

“Oh, yes, of course!” Shay answered, grabbing Matt around the middle, then lifting him into the air, one hand wrapped around his wrists to hold his arms in place, and the other wrapping almost completely around both legs. “Is this sufficient!”

“Woah, Shay, you’re the best!” Lance remarked, completely unironically. 

Coran ran up to Shiro, part of his mustache singed, his hair ruffled, and his eyes wild. “Shiro, you’ve got to do something! The rest of the team’s doing good at separating them, but unless we can keep them apart, they’re just going to start fighting again!”

Shiro blinked. “But… why are they fighting? Pidge and Matt get along so well…”

“I haven’t the faintest,” Coran replied, “but if they don’t knock it off soon, they’re going to do some serious damage to the castle!”

Shiro nodded, making his way down the stairs and taking ahold of Pidge, relieving the burden from Keith, who looked relieved to give it away.

“Pidge, what’s going on here?” he asked, making sure to keep his voice level, because if he added more emotion to the scene, he’d just be throwing half-spent fireworks into a bonfire.

Pidge fell stubbornly silent, but suddenly a bit sheepish now that Shiro was there. She wouldn’t meet his gaze, and instead kept glaring fixedly at Matt.

Shiro tried to wheedle an answer out of Pidge, but she wasn’t talking, so he turned to Matt instead. “Well? Seriously, what’s going on? I expected this kind of thing out of Lance and Keith, but not out of you two.”

“Hey!” Lance squeaked indignantly. “Me and Keith are getting along just  _ fine _ , thank you very much!”

Shiro raised an eyebrow at this, also making a mental note of the way Keith’s expression became startled, then shifted to one of incredible softness almost instantly, despite the bleeding cut on his lip from where it looked like he’d taken an elbow to the face. 

“I was just trying to help, but Pidge got upset that I was messing with her  _ system _ . And then she started yelling about how much I made her  _ worry _ . Like she’s our mom,” Matt answered.

“Oh, don’t even get me  _ started _ about Mom,” Pidge snapped back, but was silenced by a look from Shiro, who then sighed and straightened up.

“Okay, look, you two, I know you probably have a really good reason to fight, because you usually get along so well, but for now, I think you guys need to calm down a bit before we can try to figure this out. Like  _ civilized _ people. Okay?”

Grudgingly, both siblings nodded, and Shiro sighed, letting go of Pidge’s shirt. As soon as she was free, he stomped away, disappearing quickly into the hallways in the direction of the Paladin’s quarters.

Once she was gone, Shiro asked Shay if she could please put Matt down, and that he was very sorry she’d gotten involved in all this.

“Oh, yes, of course!” She carefully leaned down to set Matt on his feet, also adding an extra pat on his head once he was upright. “I was only surprised, when I first came here. Oh, forgive me for my intrusion. When Hunk invited me, I was under the assumption that the team was on a break. If this is a bad time, perhaps I should return to the Balmera.”

Shiro noticed Hunk’s face twitch slightly towards a frown when she said this, and reached up to pinch the bridge of his nose. “No, no, that’s okay, Shay. You’re our guest. And hopefully from this point on we can treat you like one.”

Matt huffed, brushed off his clothes, and tromped away out of the entrance hall in the exact opposite direction from Pidge. Once he was gone, the castle fell back into an eerie silence. When had the alarm turned off? Shiro had been so focused, he hadn’t even noticed its absence until now. Coran must have turned it off as soon as he figured Shiro had the situation under control.

Although, honestly, it seemed like the situation had been pretty close to under control when he’d come in. But he’d file that thought away for another time.

“Lance, Keith, Hunk, thank you for acting so quickly. But why didn’t you notify us earlier?”

Keith frowned. “We tried, but you guys weren’t answering.”

Suddenly Shiro remembered Allura turning off the control screen so that she could talk to him comfortably, and he felt his ears warm up.

“We must not have been looking at the right cameras, I guess,” he lied, running his hands through his hair. “Okay, everyone, let’s… try to get this mess cleaned up.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And it's another chapter! I wonder how this story's going to conclude~?  
> Is it almost over? Hmmm... maybe?


	9. Allura & Coran

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pidge and Matt are still fighting, and the rest of the team is in the middle of it. But should they be taking this whole thing seriously? Or is that just going to make it worse?

By the time all of the residents of the castle had been evacuated, and all of the Olkari were on high alert to prepare for any potential threats coming from inside of it, Allura received the voice message from Coran telling her that it was all under control.

“What? What happened?” she demanded, noticing the nearby Olkari communications officer looking at her curiously, and then beginning to walk a distance away as she spoke into her comm link. 

“Pidge and Matt got in a huge fight, and we weren’t sure we were going to be able to stop them! Thankfully Shiro was able to separate them, but it was a huge mess!” Coran answered, with his usual enthusiasm, although she noticed a slight shake in his voice.

She frowned. “Matt and Pidge? Fighting?”

“I’d say ‘fighting’ is a bit of an understatement, actually,” he answered. “They were doing some real damage to the Castle!”

Allura felt her expression flatten as she grit her teeth. “So you’re telling me that you put the castle on high alert just because a pair of siblings were having an argument?” she hissed.

“It was chaos, and it didn’t look like Keith, Lance, and Hunk were going to able to stop them! I had to do something! I thought maybe hearing the emergency alarm would startle them!”

Allura squeezed her eyes shut and sighed exasperatedly. “Coran, do you realize what that alarm has done? The refugees were all frightened for their lives, thinking we were going to attack, and now the Olkari have a lockdown on anything coming out of the Castle. How am I going to explain to them that it was just an internal dispute! They’ll think we’re mocking them! Next time an alarm occurs, they might not react so quickly! This one act will have far-reaching consequences that now  _ I _ will have to deal with! You  _ must _ start taking your duties more seriously!” She swallowed, trying to contain her irritation. She knew not all of it was the fault of Coran, and some of it was just caused by annoyance at her peaceful talk with Shiro having been interrupted, but she still felt irritated that Coran was the only Altean left alongside her in this reality, and yet she couldn’t count on him as much as she wanted to.

“I am deeply sorry, Princess. If you’d like, I can explain the situation to the Olkari myself--”

“That won’t be necessary,” she interrupted, turning back to the Olkari communications officer and giving him her most encouraging smile. “Just… try to get everything back in working order, and wait for me on the bridge.”

Coran was quiet for a while, to the point where Allura wasn’t sure if he’d just broken the connection without her noticing. But then finally:

“Alright, Princess. Everything will be put back in order.”

His voice had lost most of its amusement, somehow instantly the voice of a man without a smile, with years of experience in it. She felt a lump rise in her throat at the sound of that voice, a Coran she remembered, but had almost forgotten.

“Yes… thank you, Coran.”

~

The effects of the emergency alarm really did have far-reaching consequences. The Olkari’s standard procedure in case of the threat of invasion was a full one-week lockdown of communications and travel from inside the endangered area and a thorough investigation into all people who had evacuated it. It was probably as a precaution against not getting conquered like they were the last time, which Allura could understand, but it meant that for a whole week, the entire team of Voltron was trapped in the castle alongside the volatile Pidge and Matt. Shay was also stuck there, unable to return to the Balmera until they were all safely cleared by the Olkari.

Of course, they  _ could _ leave at any time, since Allura doubted the Olkari could actually stop the Castle of Lions from leaving the planet, but she truly did not feel like making that kind of political decision unless absolutely necessary. The Olkari were important allies, maybe more important than any other allies they’d made so far, and she was not about to jeopardize that relationship. Still, sometimes, with the way the atmosphere in the castle was like just then, she was becoming just a little bit tempted.

Matt and Pidge had locked themselves in the complete opposite sides of the castle, refusing to acknowledge the other existed, and rarely ever leaving their chosen haunts unless unavoidable, like having to go to the bathroom.

Which was probably a good thing, because the one time they  _ had _ actually encountered each other since their fight in the entrance hall had made everyone’s hearts stop. Just once, Matt had been on his way to the kitchen for a snack, and Pidge had been making her way to the bathroom, and they’d passed each other in the hallway. Hunk, who’d been just about to step out of the kitchen, had held his breath the whole time the exchange was taking place, his eyes flicking back and forth between the two siblings as they passed each other. 

Thankfully, nothing had happened, but as Hunk described it, the moment they saw each other, their faces had hardened into a fierce glare that could turn your blood to ice, not even blinking. And for a moment, they had paused, the glare continuing… and then Pidge had quickly turned her head away, and stomped off down the hallway. Only once they were both out of sight had Hunk started breathing again.

Coran was, for once, dedicating himself entirely to his tasks, almost eerily silently. His speed at getting the Entrance hall back to its original state was uncanny, despite the depth of the damage. Allura felt a bit guilty for assuming he had been exaggerating the scale of the fight, but she didn’t say anything. It felt rude to interrupt his intense focus.

Sometimes she felt like they were back on Thayserix, where the atmosphere was so combustible that the smallest flame could produce a massive ignition. This wasn’t the first fight to have ever happened in Team Voltron, and it certainly wouldn’t be the last, but she had always expected it to be Lance and Keith, because that was how it had always been. But to her complete surprise, the two usual troublemakers were instead spending a great deal of time together. They were clearly disturbed by the Holt siblings’ disagreement, but they seemed to have formed a sort of… bubble of peace around them, talking together in low tones, and smiling gently at something the other said.

There had been plenty of times Allura had wanted to ask them why they were getting along so well, but every time she had tried, she had felt like she was interrupting some kind of private moment, that she’d ruin it by intruding.

She asked Shiro about this, and if it meant what she had a feeling it did.

“I think, before the fight started, Pidge said something to them,” he answered, making his signature thoughtful pout as he considered the question. Allura found it quite endearing. “I don’t know what, but I think… yeah, they’re probably gonna be okay.”

Allura sighed, collapsing into one of the chairs on the bridge. “What a relief… I wondered if they’d ever acknowledge it.”

Shiro laughed, leaning against the panel next to her. “I knew they would eventually. They can be a little clueless sometimes, but they’re pretty smart.”

She frowned. “Do you think they’ll be good for each other?”

“I’m not really an expert in that kind of thing, but…” he shrugged. “I think they’ve always worked together pretty well, as long as they’re not really thinking about it. I always did think their arguments always thought a little forced, actually.”

Allura smiled a little at that thought, silently agreeing. “Still, I don’t think we can leave the situation as it is. I regret that Shay got roped into all of this, when she was just visiting as a guest.”

“Yeah… though I’m kind of surprised at Hunk. It’s not really like him to leave the team and go on a solo mission.”

Allura glanced at the ship’s hallway cameras, noticing Hunk and Shay in the kitchen, making milkshakes together, talking and smiling. She shuddered at the idea of a milkshake, now that she knew what they were made from, but it was a cute scene nonetheless. They, too, seemed isolated from the tension in the castle, even though she was not. She couldn’t be, so long as she remained a leader of any kind.

“Well… it has only been two days,” she sighed, getting up to maybe go to the training deck and exercise the tension out of her body. “Perhaps after some more time, things may return to normal.”

~

Or not. 

With Pidge refusing to come out of her room for any reason aside from basic bodily functions, and sometimes not even that (Shiro had started taking plates of food goo from the kitchen and leaving it in front of her door), technological understanding in the castle was slowing to a halt. It wasn’t like anything was out of shape, since they’d finally been able to repair the last of the damage from the recent battles, but the castle was just too big of a ship for Hunk and Coran to maintain on their own, even with Coran’s recent change.

“Why is the shield generator demonstrating a malfunction?” Allura grumbled to herself, staring perplexedly into the generator’s crystal chamber. As far as she could tell, there was nothing wrong with it. They were all in place, looked undamaged, and if she engaged the shields, they would still flicker on. But a few moments later, the shield would flicker back off, and the control screen would show a flashing red “error” message.

She wanted to ask Coran, but he was currently in the middle of much-neglected maintenance on the scaultrite lenses of the wormhole generator. Her only other option was Hunk, who was busy attempting to remove an errant Vretna that had managed to make its way into the castle’s heating system completely unnoticed the last time they’d landed on Arus, and was now chasing the Altean mice through the vents. A job that Hunk was wildly unsuited for, but without Pidge, they’d had to make do. Keith was trying to help him, at least with the parts where actual crawling through the air vents were concerned, but since the ventilation system wasn’t exactly designed to accommodate something that size, it was a delicate project that required Hunk’s technical expertise. 

Sighing, Allura decided to page Lance. “Hello, Lance? Could you please go replace Coran in the scaultrite lens chamber? I need his help up here.”

“What? Oh, uh… yeah! Be there in a sec!” 

His voice sounded like someone who had been doing something else, and had been interrupted by her voice, but she decided to put that out of her mind for now, in favor of mentally preparing herself to face Coran again. 

To be honest, his transformation unsettled her more than she dared let on. It wasn’t because she’d never seen him this serious before, but because she  _ had _ . It reminded her of the war in Altea, of the way his face had gone slack with concentration, how every death, every massacre at the hands of the Galra had pulled just a little bit more of the humor from the voice, just as it had her father’s. It had all seemed so distant, she had almost forgotten it.

The doors to the Bridge opened, and Coran stepped through, with that same war-hardened look she’d hoped to never see again. 

“What is it, Princess?” he asked.

“The shield is malfunctioning, but I can’t figure out why,” she answered, clutching one hand tightly in the other. “Nothing appears to be damaged or out of place, yet…”

Without saying anything, he moved to the generator’s crystal chamber and peered inside, then tapped his fingers against the side of the panel and straightened up. “They simply need to be cleaned. If we can enlist the aid of the mice again, it’ll be fixed quite quickly. Unfortunately, we can’t really rely on them until Hunk and Keith take care of the Vretna.”

“Yes… well… as soon as they do, I’ll take care of it, then,” she replied, unable to keep the concern off of her face. Still, she didn’t feel the need to apologize for what she’d said to him. He was the oldest person on the ship-- they needed him to act like it sometimes. Even if it might be frightening to her.

“Right, then. I’ll return to the scaultrite lens chamber, then,” he replied curtly.

“Wait, Coran…”

“Yes, Princess?”

The words died in her throat. “Never mind. Thank you.”

“Of course, Princess.”

~

Meanwhile, Shiro wasn’t helping with the maintenance of the castle, not because he was lazy, but because he had something more important to do. 

He knocked on the door of the main docking bay, calling inside. “Hey, Matt, it’s me. Open up.”

He waited for a response, and received silence.

“Okay, I’m coming in, alright? I just want to chat.”

He sounded like some kind of police officer, he thought, but couldn’t really take back the words after he said them. But this whole fight had dragged on for far too long, and he was probably the person closest to Matt aside from Pidge, so…

The door slid open and Shiro made his way inside, looking all around. Monitors glowed through against the stale blue lights of the castle from inside one of the rebel aircraft, and Shiro made his way over to it.

“Hey, Matt?” he called up, surprised when he saw Matt’s face peek out at him from the window, and then wave him up.

He climbed into the cockpit, looking around, noticing Matt sitting sideways in the pilot’s chair, his feet up on the dashboard as he focused intently on a game on his computer.

“Is that… Pong?” he asked, as casually as he could manage.

Matt cracked a smile. “Yeah, I programmed it onto my computer myself because I got super bored out in the secret rebel underground all by myself. You wanna play?”

Shiro shook his head, settling down onto the cockpit floor, nearby Matt’s head. “You don’t really look that upset right now,” he observed.

Matt winced, costing him just enough concentration to lose the game. “As long as Pidge and I are separated, I think everything’s fine,” he answered, starting another game. “But then I see her and think that maybe she’ll never trust me again, and I get kinda scared. We used to get along so great, y’know? I guess… maybe I’m just a little scared that my little sister’s way more amazing than I am. I always knew it would happen someday, but… not quite so fast. And definitely not like  _ this _ .”

He lost the game again, then gave up and leaned his head against the back of the chair, looking at Shiro out of the side of his eye. “But you knew that when you came here, right?”

Shiro shrugged. “A bit. So why don’t you just try talking to her about it?”

Matt quickly looked away from him again, although Shiro noticed an unrecognizable emotion spasm across his face just before it went out of sight again. “You saw us back there. We’ll just start fighting and breaking things again.”

“I don’t know, it seemed to work pretty well for Keith and Lance.”

Matt snorted. “Yeah, but that’s a  _ whole _ different kind of relationship. Those two were never cut out to be the brother duo.”

“So what are you gonna do?”

“I dunno,” Matt answered, avoiding Shiro’s gaze. “Wait for the Olkari’s week to be up, then leave again with the rebel fleet, so I can get out of Pidge’s way. I guess.”

Just then, there was a squealing sound, and then a scream, and then what looked like a pig crossed with a llama came crashing down from the ceiling of the docking bay, followed by a very annoyed Keith who was covered in soot and looked plenty ready to cut the thing up for dinner.

“That’s it, I’m sick of this. I’m just gonna kill it!” he shouted, barely even acknowledging the lights of the occupied ship as he dashed past. Hunk followed behind, looking distinctly out of breath, and also covered with soot, although he at least hadn’t come crashing down out of the ceiling.

“Wait, Keith, no! It’s a sacred animal! Only priests are allowed to kill it!” he called out after him. “Keith? KEITH!”

And then he hurried off after him, since it was probably not difficult to follow the squealing sounds.

Shiro sighed. “Well, guess I’d better go help them before they get into serious trouble…”

He heard a crashing sound, and then a string of curse words from Keith’s mouth, some of them apparently in Galra, because although he didn’t recognize them, Matt’s eyes widened.

“At least, any  _ more _ trouble,” he added, stopping to let the Altean mice scamper up his feet and up to his shoulder, where they came to a rest, shivering with fright.

~

Dinner that night was Arusian Vretna served with space goo cooked in such a way that it almost actually resembled mashed potatoes, were it not, you know… green.

The team, plus Shay and minus Pidge, were all gathered in the dining room, staring down at the delicious-looking meat that had been a real live animal only a few hours before. Allura was picking at her food, feeling very little appetite, while Keith and Lance were, as usual, swallowing it down faster than they could chew. But as soon as their plates were empty, they leaned back and looked over at her.

“So… Allura… what are we going to do about Pidge?” Lance asked her, then laughed at a bit of food goo stuck to Keith’s face and wiped it off.

She looked up in surprise. “Pidge?”

“Yeah, the problem child locked in her room and wasting Hunk’s good food. Why do you sound surprised?”

“It’s just… I didn’t think you two were all that concerned about her.”

“Of  _ course _ we’re concerned,” Keith answered, frustration showing on his face. “It’s just that we don’t know what… what to do about it.”

“Yeah,” Hunk agreed. “I mean, me and Lance were a team with Pidge back at the Garrison, but… that was when she kept to herself, was pretending to be a boy, and was secretly searching for alien messages up on the rooftop every night.” He ticked them off on his fingers as he listed them, ending in a shrug. “So… yeah, I don’t think we actually really learned enough about Pidge back then to know what to do right now.”

“I feel like we have to do  _ something _ ,” Keith argued, standing up. “We were all having a really hard time getting along, until Pidge finally spoke up. I feel like we owe it to her to fix things now.”

“Um… I’m not certain what is going on,” Shay piped up from next to Hunk, “but if I can help in any way… I’m willing to.”

Hunk smiled at her encouragingly, and although Allura was glad for her offer, she wasn’t sure it solved anything. 

“So… Shiro, you’re the leader,” Lance called out, sounding a bit more like a  _ challenge _ to Shiro’s authority than a call to it, but Allura decided to ignore that, “what should we do?”

“Yeah, and you’re the only one here who actually knew both Matt AND Pidge, so…” Keith added.

Shiro looked around the whole table, then slowly set down his spork and said, “well, I don’t actually know. As far as I know, Matt and Pidge have never actually fought before.”

“What, like at all?!” Lance remarked. “No way.  _ Every  _ pair of siblings fights sometimes, take it from me.”

“Matt only told me that usually, when they got in arguments, it would always end with the two of them facing off, glaring at each other, until suddenly one of them starts laughing, and then they both do. And then everything would always be okay.” He paused, looking down at his plate. “But they’ve never  _ really _ fought before, not that I know.”

Lance sighed. “Great, so you’re useless. Coran? What do  _ you _ think we should do?”

Coran suddenly looked up, apparently a bit surprised at the call for his advice. “Me?”

“Well, yeah,” Lance answered. “you’re kind of like our weird father figure. Actually, maybe that’s Shiro. I guess you’re more our weird uncle figure.”

Coran seemed to fight back a smile, and then stroked his moustache thoughtfully, leaning back in his chair. “Well, uh, let’s see… They can’t seem to talk to each other without fighting, so… maybe if we give them something to do together, they can bond over teamwork.”

“Huh?” Keith asked.

Coran straightened, a bit of his usual forced self-importance showing through again. “Yes, it worked quite well with all of you, didn’t it? Team Voltron was hardly a team at all when you first came to the Castle with the Blue Lion. But when you were involuntarily forced into teamwork, you all bonded quite well, I’d say!”

He spun dramatically to Hunk and Shay. “Say, do you think the project of installing the Balmera crystal into Voltron would go faster with Pidge and Matt’s assistance?”

Hunk nodded vigorously. “Actually, I don’t think I can even do it without Pidge. I can hook it up just fine, but programming the thing to do exactly what we want it is gonna be pretty tough.”

“Alright, then, let’s begin project ‘Sibling Bonding!’” he cheered, then seemed to freeze, glancing over at Allura. “That is, if it seems like an effective plan, Princess.”

Allura sighed. “Right now, it’s the only plan we’ve got. So I suppose we have no choice.”

~

At first, the plan appeared to be working, with Pidge and Matt coerced into both coming into the Yellow Lion’s docking bay by an over-exuberant Coran and an extremely persistent Lance. They hadn’t started fighting, although the expected glaring had  _ definitely _ happened, but probably their mutual desire to solve a complex problem like installing a giant crystal into a giant robot overrode their desire to argue.

For Allura, their concentrated silence was as lovely as the greatest music.

Shay and Hunk had worked to get the crystal hooked up to the Yellow Lion, and then left the rest to Pidge and Matt.

At this point, though, the plan stopped. They had planned for lots of scenarios in case it didn’t work, but hadn’t really been prepared for what to do if it did. She wasn’t sure if she should leave the two of them alone, or if the others should stay as sort of… chaperones, to stop them in case anything did happen.

Finally, after many doboshes of peace, she decided that the first option was best, and ordered the Paladins to clear out and leave Pidge and Matt to their work.

As they made their way out of the room, Allura stepped next to Coran, looking sheepishly down at her feet. “Coran, I must admit… perhaps I was wrong. I understand now that you’ve always taken your job very seriously, and you’ve always acted so energetically to keep all of our spirits up… and I don’t believe I’ve truly appreciated that. You’ve always… looked after us. In all of the ways we don’t always think to.”

Coran smiled under his moustache, then reached up and patted her head. “That’s alright, Allura. After all, you’re all still a bunch of kids tossed into a war spanning the universe. You’ve all had to become grown-ups so quickly…  _ someone _ has to be a kid!”

She laughed, shaking her head.

Maybe everything was going to be okay, she thought as she heard Hunk ask Shay if she wanted to help him bake a cake to celebrate their success, saw Lance ever so subtly slide his hand into Keith’s, making some kind of flirtatious line about the stars in his eyes, and felt Shiro’s steadying presence beside her. They were finding their level ground again.

And, of course, right about when she thought that is when the arguing began.


	10. Pidge & Matt

It started quietly. Just an offhanded comment by Matt about how he was pretty sure binary code wasn’t going to be sufficient for this kind of work, Pidge responding that even the Olkari used binary code, so Matt should shut up. And then it was back and forth about alien technologies, who’d spent longer in space versus who was an _actual Paladin of Voltron_ and thus more qualified to know what they were talking about.

And then the two of them were rapidly typing out algorithms to see who could get the programming to work faster, the Balmera crystal beginning to flicker from the inside with different colors as the flood of information entered it.

“It’s _not_ going to work!” Pidge argued, sending the final command into the Balmera crystal, making it glow bright lime green. “Voltron is a powerful weapon, but it’s still just a machine! Binary code will work!”

“We’re talking about alien tech here! There are way more options than just 'yes' or 'no!' Plus Voltron also contains magic not even the Alteans fully understood, so we can’t oversimplify everything!” Matt shot back, causing the crystal to shift from lime green to bright orange.

Allura had just got back to the bridge, checking up on the pair through the ship’s cameras, when she saw the fight start, and immediately spun on her heel and went right back out the door, grabbing Shiro by the shirt as she passed, a silent plea for him to go with her, because she had a feeling this was about to get bad.

“Your program could make things worse!” Pidge was shouting, the Balmera crystal beginning to flicker between colors dangerously fast. “Look at this! It’s not connecting properly to the Yellow Lion at all!”

“That’s because _your_ program is interfering!”

“It is not!”

There was more furious typing, and now the Balmera crystal was beginning to glow bright white, heat energy emanating off from it in waves that went completely unnoticed by the arguing siblings.

Hunk and Lance burst through the door first, having actually not gone too far from the Yellow Lion’s docking bay since they were too concerned about Pidge. Then Allura and Shiro, followed by the nervous Coran and Keith.

They began heading toward the siblings, maybe to break them apart again, maybe to calm them down. But whatever they were going to do, they never got the chance to do it, because just then, the crystal emmitted a high-pitched squealing noise, flickering rapidly through colors, ending in a blindingly bright red as the squealing sound grew louder.

“Oh no,” Hunk managed.

“Everybody GET DOWN!” Coran shouted.

Hunk tackled Matt and Pidge together, landing on top of the both of them at the same time as Lance grabbed Keith by the shirt and dropped, bringing the two of them to the ground at once, and Allura grabbed both Shiro and Coran by the collars and threw them behind the paw of the Yellow Lion, managing to hit the ground herself just about the same time that the crystal exploded.

Shards went everywhere, and a wave of light and heat crashed over the whole team. And then all was quiet.

Hunk peeked open an eyelid, then sat up and looked around. “Is everyone okay?”

“Oh God, Hunk, I think you killed Pidge!” Lance shouted.

“Huh?” Hunk questioned, then realized what he’d done. “AAAAAAHHHH, Pidge, are you okay?! I was just trying to protect you from the blast. I didn’t hurt you, did I?!”

Pidge groaned, scooting out from under him. “I’m fine,” she answered, then realized her glasses had been warped out of shape by the weight of Hunk on top of her. She grimaced, then took them off and slipped them into the pocket of her hoodie. “Just had the air knocked out of my lungs.”

Slowly the team was getting up from the destruction, everyone miraculously unhurt, despite the many shards of crystal that they shook out of their hair and clothes as they stood up. Most of it was so fine, it was practically sand.

Right about when Allura was finally able to fully assess the situation and acknowledge that everyone was safe, Pidge turned to Matt and grumbled, “look what you did _now_ , genius.”

“ _Me?_ ” Matt shot back, favoring his leg a little bit. “You were the one who insisted on trying to override me instead of just _trying_ it my way!”

“You wouldn’t even listen to me!” she shouted, standing on her toes to get in his face. “If we’d done it my way, it would never have exploded! The only thing that could have _possibly_ gone wrong was that it might have _not worked_ ! But nooooo, you just _had_ to go and make everything complicated. Now we’re going to need to get _another_ crystal!”

“What if you’re wrong?!” Matt shouted back.

“I’m _not_ !” she answered, clenching her fists and glaring. “God, can’t you just _trust me?!”_

There was dead silence in the room as the two of them glared at each other, as if the argument was continuing, not with words, but with a silent fire burning in their gazes.

No one knew what to say. No one knew what to do. Not when something _this_ bad had happened.

And then, Pidge’s lips twitched.

It was small, barely noticeable. But as soon as it happened, Matt’s serious gaze failed, and a grin began to spread across his face as he desperately tried to hold himself back.

Pidge was the first to crack, the laughter spilling out of her mouth and echoing around the Yellow Lion’s chamber in a torrent. Matt was soon to follow, until both of them were gasping and crying with laughter, leaning on each other’s shoulders for support.

The rest of the team stared at them in a confusion so complete that it paralyzed them.

Finally it was Keith that said what everyone was thinking.

“Wh-what… just happened?”

This resulted in a new wave of laughter from the siblings, and thus another wave of confusion from the rest of the team.

Matt and Pidge high-fived, then turned to the team, still grinning.

“Wow, that went better than I could have hoped!” Pidge finally exclaimed, wiping the tears from her eyes. “You guys are _hopeless_!”

“Wait…” Lance muttered, “this… this was all a prank?!”

“Yup! Me and Pidge have been totally fine with each other! But _man_ did you guys look worried! You really would be in big trouble without Pidge, huh?” Matt remarked, grinning proudly at his sister.

“But… _why_?” Allura finally asked.

Pidge shrugged. “I felt like you all needed a big problem to make it seem like your own fights were small, and you’d _have_ to realize how you all felt. You were on your way there already, but… Matt and I figured you needed one last push.”

“And look!” Matt added, “It worked!”

They were right. Keith and Lance were standing so close that their fingers were brushing. Shiro and Allura had been spending more time together than ever the whole time the fight was happening, not once trying to avoid each other. Hunk had been happily avoiding the drama, for once, in favor of talking to Shay. And Coran and Allura, despite their disagreement earlier, seemed to have an even better understanding of each other. Ultimately, they were better off now than they were before.

“But what about the crystal!” Coran finally remarked. “You could have seriously injured everyone!”

Pidge laughed again. “Oh, this? This isn’t a real Balmera crystal.” She tapped a few controls on her tablet, and then a panel opened up in the floor to reveal a crystal that looked almost identical to the one that had just exploded. “ _This_ is the real Balmera crystal Hunk brought back.”

“But how’d you--?” Shiro started to ask.

“We hid it quickly as soon as you guys left, then swapped it with a harmless quartz crystal from a recon mission the rebels had done once. We made sure the “explosion” happened so fast that the quartz went straight to sand,” Matt explained triumphantly.

There was a long, long, long, long, long, loooooong silence.

And then everyone started shouting at once.

They totally deserved to be upset at being duped, but they also knew that the main reason they were upset was because Matt and Pidge had been completely right. It had all worked. They were going to be okay.

~

 

*A few quintants later*

 

“Yes, Allura, this is purple team reporting in from our recon mission, just to say we’re all clear,” Lance said cheerily into his comm link.

“Stop calling us ‘purple team,’ Keith grumbled, rolling his eyes.

“Why? I think it’s great! You’re red, I’m blue, so we’re purple!”

“But _you’re_ red now, so it doesn’t work. And Allura’s blue, so wouldn’t that make you and _Allura_ purple team?”

“No no no no, Allura’s _pink_. Pink and red just make… darker pink.”

“What an artist,” Keith replied sarcastically, leaning against the armrest of Lance’s seat in the cockpit of the Red Lion.

“I don’t mean to brag, but I actually won first place in a few painting exhibitions back home.”

Keith blinked. “Really?”

“Yeah, I actually love painting. It’s a good way to chill. Plus the ladies love an artist,” Lance replied in his usual flirtatious voice, wiggling his eyebrows.

“The ladies, huh?”

Lance frowned, seeming to reconsider his statement. “But I’m not really sure about guys. Are you into artists?”

Keith cracked a smile. “I have one artist I kinda like.”

“Oh? What’s he like? Tall, dark, and handsome; great smile, excellent shot, jack-of-all-trades?”

“Actually, he’s kind of a moron,” Keith teased, which prompted Lance to urge the Red Lion into a barrel roll, ostensibly to avoid a passing comet, but actually because the sudden movement caused the unsuspecting Keith to fall into his lap.

When Red straightened out, Keith glared up at him. “You’re a jerk.”

“Hey, I figured it’s what _you_ would do,” Lance shot back with a dazzling grin. “I’m doing pretty good at getting in your head, right?”

“You’re always in my head.”

Lance blanched, then blushed a deep crimson, looking anywhere but down at Keith’s face. Mainly because he knew that the other boy was being, as he usually was, completely 100% honest.

“Well… s-sure, um, same, I guess.”

Keith laughed, turning to look at the Red Lion’s flight display, but making no attempt to move out of Lance’s lap.

“You’re flying too slow.”

“Hey, _you_ wanna drive?”

“I _can’t_ ,” Keith replied with an exasperated sigh. “Red’s yours now. You know that.”

“Awww, come on, you’re still buddies. Besides, if I’m still sitting in the pilot’s seat, even though you’re the one flying, it still counts as me being the pilot, right?” He looked around at the cockpit, asking the Lion, “it counts, right, Red?”

When there was no response, he shrugged and said, “come on, give it a try. Just be a Paladin again, if only just pretend.”

Keith considered this, for a moment his eyes gazing lovingly at the controls. “Fine.”

He sat up, trying to situate himself comfortably enough in Lance’s lap to be able to fly. Which Lance seemed to be enjoying _immensely,_ based on the way his arms wrapped around Keith’s stomach and he rested his chin on his shoulder.

“Zoom zoom, zoom zoom, my boyfriend is~ a pilot~” Lance sung cheerfully, causing Keith to bite back a smile and roll his eyes.

“That’s a totally different transforming robot, idiot.”

“But I like the songs!”

Keith laughed silently, then reached for Red’s controls, hesitating for a moment before gently laying his hands onto them. They were warm under his palms, either from Lance’s residual body heat, or from the Lion’s own internal energy, he couldn’t be sure. But it felt as familiar to him as his red jacket, the taste of Hunk’s cooking.

“Hold on tight, Lance,” he commented, before taking a deep breath and urging the Lion forward, half surprised when the Lion responded instantly, shooting full-speed through space, bringing both of them safely back home to the Castle of Lions.

~

“Now the secret to a good space cake is that if you gently whip air into the food goo and then gradually add this red stuff that tastes kinda like honey, you make a pretty fantastic frosting. Here, give it a try!” Hunk explained, holding the whisk out to Shay with a confident flourish.

She took it and gave it a hesitant lick, her face screwing up in concentration as she analyzed the flavor. “I do not taste anything.”

Hunk frowned. “What? I’m _sure_ it tastes kind of like buttercream…” he muttered, scooping some out of the bowl with a tip of his finger and sticking it in his mouth. “No, it tastes pretty sweet to me. Maybe even a little bit too sweet, which makes it perfect for Pidge.”

Shay shook her head. “I’m not sure what “sweet” tastes like. Perhaps it is not something known to Balmerans.”

She looked so entirely upset by this information that Hunk almost regretted his entire plan to make a “congratulations for getting tricked into getting along by Pidge and Matt” cake for the whole team. Now that their quarantine by the Olkari was lifted, he felt like the team was really earning the desserts.

“Uhhhhh maybe I can make something nice for you, too! Um… what’s your favorite food?”

“I was always fond of grandma’s cave bug casserole,” Shay answered with a fond smile.

“Uuhhhh, okay, yeah, I can work with that. Do you know how to make that?”

She hesitated. “Well… grandma guards the recipe jealously, but…” she smiled. “I can try.”

She washed her hands and got to work, washing the bugs, pointing out the usual spices, and mixing the food together, explaining what she was doing to Hunk, who continued working on the cake. When she got to a part she wasn’t sure about, she asked Hunk for suggestions, and he would take a break from the cake to take a taste-test, think of possible additions, and then approve the result. And when he was doing this, Shay would take over for him to blend the batter, or pour it into the baking pan, or begin adding the food-goo frosting.

It worked pretty well, actually. They were both always aware of each other’s position in the kitchen, the conversation never halting for very long, always communicating the next step of the recipe, asking questions if needed, and not hesitating to ask for help. By the time Keith and Lance had returned, and dinner was ready, they felt pretty satisfied with themselves, and eager to see the reactions on everyone’s faces when they tasted just how good the meal was going to be.

~

 

Shiro and Allura sat on the floor of the bridge, an intricate battle plan made of rocks, bayards, and the helpful space mice, laid out before them. They huddled over it together, debating the correct tactics, various secondary plans in case something went wrong, and whether or not they would trust Lance to take over for Shiro in case of an emergency.

“In terms of the past, Voltron’s right arm-- the Paladin of the Red Lion-- has always been the one with secondary authority,” Allura argued. “That held true both with the Paladins of old, and with the five of you before I became a Paladin. And… although I would never say it to his face… I am impressed with how much he has grown. I do not believe I would have been able to get us out of Naxzela without his words.”

“Lance?” Shiro questioned. “Well, I guess Hunk doesn’t really like the stress of giving orders, and Pidge is too young to be taking responsibility for a whole team of people older than her, but… are you really willing to take orders from Lance?”

She grimaced, then sighed. “I believe that he is capable of being the most thoughtful on this team when the situation truly calls for it. But I suppose you are right-- he is not quite ready.”

“Why not you, then?” Shiro asked, holding out his hand for the pink space mouse to crawl up his arm. “You’re already just as much the leader as I am, and the team believes in you. So why not?”

Allura pursed her lips, looking down at the battle plan. “Perhaps I am frightened of giving myself too much power. I… do not want to become Zarkon.”

Shiro went quiet for a moment, then leaned over to pat her shoulders. “That won’t happen, Princess.”

“Why are you so sure?”

“Because Zarkon only turned into a _real_ monster after he practically died. And since we’re never going to let that happen to you… it’s gonna be okay.”

She smiled, leaning comfortably back against her podium. “I suppose you are right.”

They went back to the battle plans, shifting the black bayard a little bit to represent the target solar system’s irregular orbit. They were discussing whether the Green or Red Lions would be better suited for reconnaissance (since the Red Lion was faster, but the Green Lion could cloak), when Coran strolled in, whistling to himself, a blanket slung over his arm.

“Hullo there, Princess, Shiro. How are the battle plans going?”

“Slowly, I’m afraid,” Allura sighed, resting her hand on her cheek. “There are too many factors to account for.”

Coran looked down at the seemingly randomly placed collection of objects in front of them and raised an eyebrow. “Why don’t you just use the castle’s holograms?”

Shiro rubbed at the back of his neck. “Well, I guess I find the hands-on approach a bit more comfortable.

“I see… well, I brought you both a blanket, since it seems like you’ve been spending a great deal of time on the floor, and I was worried you might get cold. So, here you are.”

He held the blanket out to Allura, who accepted it gratefully. Of course, Coran had been thinking about her well-being. He always was.

“Oh, but don’t get too comfortable. Hunk says that supper will be ready as soon as Lance and Keith get back, and he’s got a special treat for everyone.”

“I wouldn’t hurry too much on the account of those two,” Shiro replied with a smile tugging at his lips. “I think they’re taking their time out there.”

Allura shuddered. “Lance forgot to kill the transmission after he reported in, so I heard all of their… flirtations before I cut it off myself. Truly, I believe we will be left waiting some time.”

“Oh? Should I tell Hunk and Shay to slow down? Or should we ask Lance and Keith to return quicker?”

Allura sighed, then shook her head. “No… leave them be. I believe… they deserve the chance to truly _enjoy_ each other’s company. Since they’ve been denied that privilege for so long.”

~

After dinner, Matt and Pidge sat quietly in the relative dim of the Yellow Lion’s hangar, working in comfortable silence on their agreed-upon segments of the programming on the Balmeran crystal, their faces lit up by the glow of the crystal, their computer screens, and the decals of the Yellow Lion. They didn’t talk much, but they didn’t have to. That silent understanding, the comfort in each other’s genius, was something they hadn’t even realized they’d missed until they had it back.

Dinner had been the usual chaos, with Lance complaining about the cave bug casserole as soon as he had found out what was in it, Hunk arguing with him about the importance of cultural relativism, especially concerning food, Shay telling him that it was okay, she understood, and Keith sitting there quietly eating before finally piping up that he didn’t really care what was in it, because it tasted pretty good.

And then Lance had announced betrayal, by his _boyfriend_ (a term he appeared all too eager to use at every opportune moment), and the argument had escalated until Shiro announced that if they couldn’t settle down, Lance wasn’t getting any cake. To which Lance had replied, “ _There’s CAKE?!”_ and then had immediately sat down and ate his cave bug casserole with gusto.

Then, when the cake had been presented, they had made a game of smearing it on each other’s faces, which had devolved into a full-scale food fight, reminiscent of the first time they had all worked together as a team.

But now all was quiet, and most of the team had gone to bed, while she and Matt continued to work. Not that they had to, it just felt nice for the both of them, waiting for that moment of accomplishment.

There was nothing but the sound of tapping on computer screens until Pidge finally spoke up, in a low voice, barely more than a murmur:

“You never apologized. For leaving. Making me think you were dead. Not really.”

Matt started a little, glancing over at her. “I thought that was a joke? Part of the prank?”

Pidge got quiet for a moment, then said, “some of it was. Some of it wasn’t.”

Matt’s expression softened, and he reached out and ruffled her hair affectionately, a gesture she didn’t pull away from, before finally saying, “what they don’t know… won’t hurt them.”

And then slowly, Pidge nodded, and that was that. They returned to their work, the last thread of discontent hanging loose in Team Voltron finally tied firmly back together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> notes:   
> -I based Shay’s inability to taste sweet on the fact that many species on earth, especially predators, such as cats and many reptiles, do not actually have the tastebuds that sense sweets.   
> -The song Lance is singing is "Watashi no Kare wa Pilotto," a reference to Super Dimension Fortress Macross, known to more people in the U.S. as the first season of Robotech.
> 
> And that's a wrap! Sorry this took so long to finish, everyone! Tbh, I lost inspiration for this story about halfway through writing it, but I didn't want to leave it as yet another fanfic I started and didn't finish. So I kept making myself sitting down and working through it. I hope it turned out okay.
> 
> Not to mention someone requested some fluffy Klance in this story, which, if you know me at all, you know I am always HAPPY to oblige. Nonetheless, a story I actually had been kind of planning since Season 3's release, as a funny, goofy, relaxing fic... kind of got turned serious at some points thanks to the drama of S4. So sorry for that! I am easily influenced by canon unless writing a full AU lol
> 
> Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the story, and again, for any of you reading since the beginning... sorry for the wait!


End file.
